Firebase vs. OneLogin by One Identity

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

OneLogin is very convenient. Users can register their own iPhone or Android to act as their authorization device, meaning they will likely always have access to the OneLogin security code. The OneLogin application then allows the users to hit a button instead of inputting the security code to validate their two-factor authorization. OneLogin is great for businesses who need to enforce secure access into their various systems and tools. By consolidating the security into a single login with security device two-factor authorization, it makes it safe and easy to manage.

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

• Connects with a lot of different vendors, tools, and sites. It is also customizable to where you can add almost any site you are logging into. This makes it especially useful for team members who may use a tool that other team members within the company do not use.
• It works. I've used a few keychain apps that work for a little while, or never work, and this app works 99.99% of the time. Only on one experience have I experienced issue access sites and that was due to user error.
• It's easy to update passwords and usernames within the app. It allows password resets to be an easy process and lowers the time in updating items everywhere.

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

• Lack of administrative APIs for creating or setting up new connectors: This prevents the automated integration to federations and requires manual setup rather than discovery-based automated setup.
• Customization of the interface: The potential configuration of the interface are still limited at the moment (logo, primary and secondary colors, background). This prevents the usage of the platform as a communication medium or to organize the space in a more standard fashion (for our institution)
• There are some limitations with using the apps provisioning APIs that can lead to some termination or provisioning actions not being completed

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

OneLogin is very easy to use. The most complicated part is the user setup and even that is not difficult. After everything is working, using it day to day is trivial. All you have to do is have the application ready on your phone and you can use a single set of login credentials to access all of your tools securely.

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

There has never been an issue where I have needed to use the OneLogin support so it would be unfair to rate them anything other than a 10 on their ability to provide support. Like I said its a very basic platform that we use it for with no issues.

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

OneLogin has a lesser cost as compared to other solutions. It also has a successful POC, partner expertise, integration with in-house and cloud-based apps, and provides restriction of access from unauthorized devices. It is a secure solution with industry-standard encryption, a good dashboard, and a cloud-based solution. In my opinion, there is not too much effort involved in the integration and it provides good OEM support.

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

• The one big benefit would be time-saving. It is a very convenient platform.
• The access outside of the office also allows me to work at home or in my spare time for additional business that needs to be taken care of.

Incentivized