Firebase vs. OneSignal

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

I think One Signal is very well suited for mobile app owners who want to be in touch with their user base more easily by sending push notifications and in-app messages. I'm not sure how well that works for SMS messaging as I haven't yet tried it. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it if your in-apps are very rare.

Incentivized

• 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

• Send instant notifications without any delay.
• Provide all the necessary features for testing.
• Highly cost effective.
• Great system to handle huge volume.
• Great customer support.

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

• They should develop features a bit faster as per user requirements.
• Old users should get freemium model for new features.
• Admin can look a bit better.
• In-built and easy to use segmentation should be there too.

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

I give an 8 in this question mainly for 2 reasons: the products even if they look like complete and are highly customizable and usable, they are still missing some logical features. For example, send messages to a list of users - now days you can do it with postman and get calls. A second example is App messaging that is still in development and has many opportunities.

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

Their customer support has been top-notch. They are able to assist you in getting through any problems that you may have and respond in a very timely manner. I've dealt with them on 4-5 instances over the years and my issues were always resolved within a matter of a few business days.

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

Look Firebase is a complete platform that includes a Push notification/InApp space. We had a lot of troubles while implementing Firebase: sometimes we thought it was ready until we tried to attach an image for Push notifications. This being said, the developers had to review the integration several times until we decided to change to OneSignal. Also while using Firebase I was not convinced with the look and feel of the Notifications. My vote here is OneSignal.

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've seen direct-purchase conversions on new offers.
• It does a great job of driving traffic to off-site locations like YouTube for new videos.

Incentivized