Firebase vs. MongoDB

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

MongoDB [is] great at storing JSON data grouped into "collections". In this format, you can store any JSON documents and conveniently categorize them by collections. The JSON document contained in MongoDB is called binary JSON or BSON and, like any other document in this format, is unstructured. Therefore, unlike traditional DBMS, any kind of data can be stored in collections, and this flexibility is combined with the horizontal scalability of the database. It should be noted that MongoDB does not have links between documents and “collections” (this is partially compensated by the Database Reference - links in the DBMS, but this does not completely solve the problem). As a result, a situation arises in which there is a certain set of data that is not related to other information in the database, and there is no way to combine data from different documents. In SQL systems, this would be an elementary task.

• Extremely robust. Has about any tool you can think of under one roof making it extremely useful as a backup platform for data analytics or small teams that need something quickly.
• Intuitive and easy UI/UX. Being made and owned by Google, you expect nothing less. Very easy to use for anyone that has any marketing or analytical experience especially in Google Analytics (which I just assume all marketers do).
• Safe, secure, and sturdy. Never need to worry about downtimes or misinformation as it's as clean and safe as it is being run by Google.
• FREE! What else is there to say. Unless you're an extremely large application handling hundreds of thousands to millions of users, this pay as you go plan will stay free.

Incentivized

• Easy to learn. When I picked up MongoDB for the first time, I had little background in database management or modeling. If you have a background in javascript (and JSON)... then you can figure out how to use MongoDB pretty fast.
• Fast performance.
• It's relatively easy to set up in certain environments because there are lots of ready-made solutions out there.
• There's a lot of support in the existing ecosystem for it —, especially in the node.js realm.
• Query syntax is pretty simple to grasp and utilize.
• Aggregate functions are powerful.
• Scaling options.
• Documentation is quite good and versioned for each release.

Incentivized

• Firebase/Firestore has very limited support for querying more complicated items; for example, performing a simple string search is not possible.
• While upfront costs are low, costs can grow quickly if you're not careful about what you are being billed for.
• Dashboards have at times shown different information to what is billed, and support from Google is less than stellar and not as effective as that from Amazon or Microsoft.

Incentivized

• I love the idea of Map-Reduce native support in MongoDB. Admittedly I have not used it as much as I would like -- it always seems to trip me up.
• Recent additions to the aggregation queries have helped reduce (no pun intended) my need to better wield the weapon that is Map-Reduce.

Incentivized

MongoDB is one of the most famous non-relational databases in the world, there are famous active projects that use this database. I think that the same company that develops the database gives you the online induction totally free is something that really is very positive. Accounts with a first-class support to be able to relate the correct implementation of the database, in addition to teaching you the best practices to optimize your projects, I believe that with this decision it is more than obvious which is the best decision at the time of seeing with which database to work.

Incentivized

I don't use the Firebase UI much, but rather connect it to GA4. GA4 has a great event model but the GA4 UI and analysis capabilities are limited. It's harder to measure product usage type of engagement but if you have the time and resources to leverage the GA4 to BiqQuery export you'll have all the raw event data you'll need for deep analysis, segmentation, and audience activation.

Incentivized

It is one of the reasons why we prefer it to store documents in a JSON-style format, to access the desired document very quickly regardless of its size, to be readable by human eyes, and to be easily scalable and manageable.

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

I have reached multiple times to the MongoDB community for the help and they have provided each and easy solution for every problem. Over the internet and on stack overflow many people responds over the challenges. Now this tool is very much used in every company and projects so internally many people are there to give a support.

Incentivized

While the setup and configuration of MongoDB is pretty straight forward, having a vendor that performs automatic backups and scales the cluster automatically is very convenient. If you do not have a system administrator or DBA familiar with MongoDB on hand, it's a very good idea to use a 3rd party vendor that specializes in MongoDB hosting. The value is very well worth it over hosting it yourself since the cost is often reasonable among providers.

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

The environment I work in is somewhat unique in that we use both MySQL and MongoDB. However, each is used for specific purposes that the other is not well suited for. MongoDB is not a relational database like MySQL, so it serves as the perfect place to dump key bits of data for quick retrieval later. This is something we can't easily do with MySQL. On this smaller database, MongoDB also lets us retrieve data more quickly with its fast and efficient querying.

Incentivized

• Firebase has been able to help us understand reliably, the drop-off in our user flows with their funnel feature. This has made it easy for us to be able to pinpoint weaknesses in our funnel and test and optimize with data as the dependent variable.
• From an economic standpoint, we don't pay for Firebase which is great, but as the saying goes "You get what you pay for" also holds true in this context. As we looked to grow and scale, we looked for a paid solution.
• From a developer resource standpoint, Firebase has been extremely easy to integrate into our app. Whether it be the event tracking, dynamic links or crash reporting we have not had to waste too much developer time thanks to their well-organized developer docs.

Incentivized

• We can make more open and flexible systems due to its easy adaptation to new evolutions in web applications.
• In the latest versions it offers support for different transactions and we could carry out real tests related to the concurrency of the application.
• MongoDB allows you to have distributed clusters, which improves the speed of the queries by reducing the latency that exists between the database cluster and the service that executes the query.

Incentivized