Hello, basically i am an intermediate/beginner assembly writer, and i have worked with several assemblers.

Anyway, Fasm has caught my eye, and Nasm seems like the only other one that is near the level in my head.

Basically, which one is a better assembler overall. Yes, i understand that most people here would say Fasm and i am expecting bias (bias is inevitable) so just bias your arguments as much as you want, don't worry Actually, don't worry about better overall, just list advantages and disadvantages, cause i am sure that overall is too general.

I have worked with both these assemblers (lightly), but i don't think that i have seen much difference in these (other than very small syntax differences) and just want something to distinguish them apart, and so i can finally settle down on an assembler.

Thanks for your help!!

Well, about (dis)advantages you can consult
=> http://board.flatassembler.net/topic.php?t=1422
but some people (like me ) have tried ONLY FASM so my answer could not possibly be objective, but AFAIK FASM is the most rapidly advancing compiler on earth

I recently switched all of my assembly development to FASM. Prior to this I used NASM for everything. Why the switch?

1) License -- BSD-like as opposed to LGPL (this is a personal preference)
2) Speed -- FASM is much faster than NASM
3) Updates -- FASM is updated more frequently
4) Quality -- There are fewer bugs and they are fixed faster in FASM
5) Portability -- With the new LIBC backed port, FASM can run anywhere NASM can (e.g., Linux, Windows, DOS, FreeBSD, BeOS, and others)
6) Community -- the FASM community is very helpful, the NASM community much less so
7) Formats -- FASM can generate relocatable ELF, ELF executables, PE, MZ, linear binaries (.COM & .BIN), and maybe others, without needing any extra tools (Like linkers)

I'm probably a little biased, but the above is my view on the current state of things.

Well, when I first started asm I was homed in to nasm, but then as I saw that nasm was/is pretty dead, I had little choice but to go with masm (which was fine at the time, as I was on windows back then), then after some time I got my eyes on fasm, and I really started to like it (I saw many smimilaryties with nasm), and as fasm still is under development and has features I don't recall nasm had.
I'd say that fasm outperformes nasm, and stands very well - well there would be one area where nasm is greater than fasm, and that's that nasm is perhaps more wide spread/know than fasm in current days, but that's subject to changge as fasm is spreading and getting more and more know every clock tick.

1 to 7 are applicable in my case and also:

8 ) Source code: Fasm is written in Fasm. This is self-confidence.
9 ) Simplicity: All options and tweaks are inside sources. No command line options and external def files.
10) Integration: Fasm does not need resource editors, linkers,...
11) Size: It is very small and there are many advantages with this single fact.

I'll agree with points 8 to 11 as well! I *did* (briefly) mention the integration in point 7!

5) is questionable
NASM is c-programmed, and can compile x86 asm code on any processor
please correct me if i am wrong

Right, but so what? It is a rare situation when you write your code for x86 on different architecture processor. Coding assembler with assembler has many more important advantages. It also shows that even such big and advanced (FASM uses advanced algorithms for parsing for example) projects can be written in pure assembly.
But, OTOH, it is a fact that NASM is more portable.

I see what he means though.
He is just pointing out that number 5 is wrong.

Nasm and Fasm are both blazing fast assemblers (all assemblers are, really) so speed shouldn't really concern me. It is a good plus from my point...

Now what really hit me, that makes me want to switch over is the fact that Fasm had about 5 or so updates since the last update of Nasm, so i can see where bugs/support come in.

One last question before i decide which for myself is better,
Are there any major books or etc geared toward an intermediate/beginner that uses Fasm? Sure, documentation is good but tuturials and etc are better for my purposes.

I conceed point 5 - FASM isn't quite as portable, but it does run on pretty much any sane x86 OS now.

CRC's first message, quite stated it all for me.
Might I add that, the conversion from Nasm to Fasm of all my source code include files was very easy since the source for both are quite similuar.
ALSO, with Fasm you have this message board.
In the future, you too might find it very helpfull and informitive also, (like no other available)
+ The IQ here is awesome & attracts same.

I can't seem to find the licence for Fasm.

Anyone have a link?

All the Fasm packages (zip files) contains the license.

See the attachment for the latest version of the License (essentially a BSD-like one IIRC)

I see adhered is still misspelled as aheared.