Firebase vs. Google Optimize

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

It is a little too limited for a full stack experimentation programme. Many times we required development support or tech advise but we were simply unable to get this due to it being google. This was a big problem for us. However it is quite good if you were looking to get started in experimentation and didn’t have the budgets for a wider tool

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

• Easy to follow set up procedures. Once I walk a client through the process, it's effortless for them to emulate on subsequent tests.
• Lots of geo and user attribute customization features to be able to drill down into specific targeted audiences — all based on the power of Google's immense data system.
• Google Optimize is the logical choice for many people to start with since most are already familiar with and using GA.

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

• Only works for browsers, not for the apps testing.
• Missing possibility to test complicated features.
• Audience division in groups is not always accurate.

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

Google has always been known to make easy-to-use products. The Google Optimize interface is intuitive and easy to follow for anyone.

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

Google has well-documented resources and unlimited use cases that can be found online. Plus, their support is always helpful and available.

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

Google Optimize being part of the Google stack makes it great in reporting and analysis. Wish Google would add more features like dynamic tests, multi funnel tests, conversion calculator based on the total number of traffic of the page being tested instead of using the websites total traffic. Should integrate form analysis, heatmap, and page analytics.

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

• We were able to increase our main KPI for conversions by almost 50% by testing button copy.
• We were able to increase secondary KPIs for conversions by almost 30% by testing form design.

Incentivized