Firebase vs. Google Cloud Storage

Firebase should be your first choice if your platform is mobile first. Firebase's mobile platform support for client-side applications is second to none, and I cannot think of a comparable cross-platform toolkit. Firebase also integrates well with your server-side solution, meaning that you can plug Firebase into your existing app architecture with minimal effort.

Firebase lags behind on the desktop, however. Although macOS support is rapidly catching up, full Windows support is a glaring omission for most Firebase features. This means that if your platform targets Windows, you will need to implement the client functionality manually using Firebase's web APIs and wrappers, or look for another solution.

Incentivized

[Google Cloud Storage is] great for storing and playing large video files, and even sharing them securely with others, whether or not they are part of your organization. No need to download video files before watching, and can also be used to store any other kinds of files.

Incentivized

• Analytics wise, retention is extremely important to our app, therefore we take advantage of the cohort analysis to see the impact of our middle funnel (retargeting, push, email) efforts affect the percent of users that come back into the app. Firebase allows us to easily segment these this data and look at a running average based on certain dates.
• When it comes to any mobile app, a deep linking strategy is essential to any apps success. With Firebase's Dynamic Links, we are able to share dynamic links (recognize user device) that are able to redirect to in-app content. These deep links allow users to share other deep-linked content with friends, that also have link preview assets.
• Firebase allows users to effectively track events, funnels, and MAUs. With this simple event tracking feature, users can put organize these events into funnels of their main user flows (e.g., checkout flows, onboarding flows, etc.), and subsequently be able to understand where the drop-off is in the funnel and then prioritize areas of the funnel to fix. Also, MAU is important to be able to tell if you are bringing in new users and what's the active volume for each platform (Android, iOS).

Incentivized

• Really great, easy to use interface helps us manage files easily. Storage is fast and inexpensive, so we don't have to spin up storage instances locally
• Great set of command-line tools to manage data and storage options via scripts and apps, as well as an SDK means we can build GCS into our orchestration and operations tools
• Robust integration with other Google cloud tools means that we don't have to think too hard about using GCS for a variety of storage tasks as we interact with other Google services.

Incentivized

• Attribution and specifically multi-touch attribution could be more robust such as Branch or Appsflyer but understand this isn't Firebases bread and butter.
• More parameters. Firebase allows you to track tons of events (believe it's up to 50 or so) but the parameters of the events it only allows you to track 5 which is so messily and unbelievable. So you're able to get good high-level data but if you want to get granular with the events and actions are taken on your app to get real data insight you either have to go with a paid data analytics platform or bring on someone that's an expert in SQL to go through Big Query.
• City-specific data instead of just country-specific data would have been a huge plus as well.

Incentivized

• Currently can't delete folders which means there are cluttered folders on my cloud.
• Easier upload options would be nice. The ability to upload and store other file types with an easier interface.
• Managing files and storage could be improved a little for easier access and editing.

Incentivized

after all of the investment made in the tool and considering how many teams use it I think we would not be likely to move away from this tool. A lot of our information including historical is already here and we are happy with the capabilities of the tool currently

Incentivized

Firebase functions are more difficult to use, there are no concepts of triggers or cascading deletes without the use of Firebase functions. Firebase functions can run forever if not written correctly and cause billing nightmares. While this hasn't happened to us specifically it is a thing that happens more than one realizes.

Incentivized

Very easy to use. I love having my data backed up. I love that Google Cloud Storage provides me with the peace of mind that I no longer need to worry about my data being lost. I can now sleep better at night. Google Cloud Storage is very easy to use. Overall, you save time and have less stress by using Google Cloud Storage.

Incentivized

For performance i give Google Cloud Storage 10 of 10 on performance because even though there are other softwares that do exactly the same thing as Google Drive, it still works exceptionally well. It is very fast, and and far as integration, the only software I have used with it that integrated was Google Docs, and of course it integrates perfectly.

Incentivized

Our analytics folks handled the majority of the communication when it came to customer service, but as far as I was aware, the support we got was pretty good. When we had an issue, we were able to reach out and get support in a timely fashion. Firebase was easy to reach and reasonably available to assist when needed.

Incentivized

We have never used official support from Google for our Google Cloud Storage, but there is plenty of documentation in place already. With a small amount of work, anybody should be able to get started. Once needs get more complicated, there is still documentation from Google, but also plenty of community support for common use cases around the internet.

Incentivized

overall I was not directly involved but hears the teams were satisfied with the implementation. the teams that used the tool did not encounter major issues, it was as expected with minor issues and bugs that were resolved later. The more significant learning curve was actually starting to use the tool

Incentivized

Before using Firebase, we exclusively used self hosted database services. Using Firebase has allowed us to reduce reliance on single points of failure and systems that are difficult to scale. Additionally, Firebase is much easier to set up and use than any sort of self hosted database. This simplicity has allowed us to try features that we might not have based on the amount of work they required in the past.

Incentivized

We prefer Google Cloud Storage over Amazon Web Services because of the tools and code integration offered by Google Cloud Storage. We found the Google Cloud Storage toolset to be highly usable and give us the fine-grained control we need for managing digital assets. Ultimately, we chose Google Cloud Storage because we found the API and suitability for code integration with our Java codebase to be impeccable and because we had excellent direct support from the Google Cloud Storage team

Incentivized

• Makes building real-time interfaces easy to do at scale with no backend involvement.
• Very low pricing for small companies and green-fields projects.
• Lack of support for more complicated queries needs to be managed by users and often forces strange architecture choices for data to enable it to be easily accessed.

Incentivized

• It has assisted greatly with our ability to share documents/information cross functionally. Especially within our advertising team, we store a large amount of information to assist new hires and refresh current employees.
• Something that could improve is employees' understanding of how to best utilize Google Cloud Storage. This could improve by implementing a potential training video or tutorial.
• Overall, Google Storage has been great. I have not used a similar storage product that had the same enterprise level capabilities.

Incentivized