Firebase

Score8.2 out of 10

149 Reviews and Ratings

What is Firebase?

Google offers the Firebase suite of application development tools, available free or at cost for higher degree of usages, priced flexibly accorded to features needed. The suite includes A/B testing and Crashlytics, Cloud Messaging (FCM) and in-app messaging, cloud storage and NoSQL storage (Cloud Firestore and Firestore Realtime Database), and other features supporting developers with flexible mobile application development.

Categories & Use Cases

Sara Rudman View profile

Full-Stack Digital Marketer & Accessibility Expert in Marketing at Wisebee (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use it as a backend and a database for mobile apps. It's easy to use which is perfect as our staff is junior in the backend development. Additionally, it has a tight integration with the FlutterFlow platform which we use to build apps.

Pros

Very easy to use
Offering the flexibility of noSQL
Out-of-the-box functionalities and integrations (e.g. Meta login)
Google Stack (e.g. easy to set up other Google software, like Google Analytics)

Cons

Generous free plan but gets price as soon as you hit a certain threshold
Hard to predict pricing for the projects (due to pricing structure complexity)

Return on Investment

Fast building due to turnkey functionalities (little hard coding)
Crashlytics automated some QA
Love the freemium - great for startups trying to save up on software

Usability

Other Software Used

Apollo.io, BuiltWith, Semrush, Google Search Console, Gemini, Perplexity, Google Sheets

Brenton Colton View profile

Analytics Lead Consultant in Professional Services at Adswerve (201-500 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Firebase to provide mobile app analytics. This includes events such page views, app feature usages, and other life cycle metrics. It helps us determine where our marketing spend is working by attributing app downloads to our campaigns, measure the lifespan of our users, and how our app is being used so we can make necessary app enhancements.

Pros

Integration to GA4
Easy SDK install and documentation
messaging app users

Cons

Marketing attribution is tough and likely you'll want to use an external vendor such as Branch or Apps Flyer

Return on Investment

Upfront cost is $0 on the free plan
Accelerates our time-to-market for app releases
Increases our marketing spend efficiency by targeting based on CPA

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Adobe Analytics and Adobe Experience Platform

Other Software Used

Google Analytics, Amplitude Analytics, Adobe Experience Platform

Evelyn So, M.Sc View profile

Strategy Consultant at Thinker & Co. (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I used Firebase to build a webapp using Cursor, an AI coding tool. Cursor suggested Firebase as the database.

Pros

Connect with Github

Cons

When I moved to using Lovable as my AI code editor, Supabase is more convenient choice as it is already integrate with Lovable.

Return on Investment

The free version serves basic usage.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Supabase

Other Software Used

Lovable, GitHub, ChatGPT

Verified User

Consultant in Corporate (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Firebase (FB) as a backend for new FlutterFlow projects. It is easily integrated with the product and for a while was the only choice. However I would greatly prefer tabular(SQL) data to FB when it comes to any function that you need to write.

Pros

Tight integration with FlutterFlow
Ease of deployment
NoSQL structure allows for easier experimentation

Cons

Functions require learning a different language
There is not a good native UI for viewing/working with data
Google's Constantly changing (deep linking) exhibits noncommittal nature to the product's features.

Return on Investment

Ease of deployment for FlutterFlow projects
Rapid manipulation of database schema
Slight learning curve for those coming from SQL background
40% decline in productivity on projects due to Firebase functions

Usability

Alternatives Considered

MongoDB, MongoDB Atlas, Supabase, Azure SQL Database and Microsoft SQL Server

Other Software Used

FlutterFlow, Supabase, Make

Jose Perri View profile

Director of Engineering and Product Development in Research & Development at Alarmas Marshall (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

As manufacturers of electronic equipment interconnected through the IoT Cloud, we needed a robust backend technology that could easily scale as our user base grew. The solution that we needed was to include a real-time database as well as the possibility of executing functions in the cloud according to that database received the data of our clients, for example, sending push notifications.

Pros

Increase in real time the processing capacity according to the demand.
The realtime database is surprisingly fast running efficiently on Android and IOS.

Cons

Although the functionality of the real-time database is complete through code, the functionality of the WEB console is limited.
In the case of cloud functions, although there is a method of testing operation, its implementation is not very practical, and programs must be downloaded to run on the local PC; being a platform in the cloud, it would be great to be able to test functions from the WEB console directly.

Most Important Features

Realtime database.
Cloud Functions.

Return on Investment

Fast development on all operating systems involved.
Being a system in the cloud, maintenance and updating costs are minimized compared to a structure with its own servers.

Alternatives Considered

Amazon Web Services

Other Software Used

TeamViewer, Postman, Streamlabs