Firebase

An app development platform backed by Google

5.0•217 reviews•

2.9K followers

An app development platform backed by Google

5.0•217 reviews•

2.9K followers

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Engineering & Development

•

Authentication & identity tools

•

Databases and backend frameworks

An app development platform that helps you build and grow apps and games users love. Backed by Google and trusted by millions of businesses around the world.

FramerLaunch websites with enterprise needs at startup speeds.

Promoted

Firebase Launches

Cloud Firestore, by FirebaseStore, sync and query app data at global scale

Launched on October 3rd, 2017

Cloud Functions for FirebaseRun your mobile backend code without managing servers

Launched on March 9th, 2017

FirebaseApp success made simple by google

Launched on May 18th, 2016

Firebase HostingProduction-grade Hosting for Developers

Launched on May 14th, 2014

Company Info

firebase.google.com GitHub

Firebase Info

Launched in 2014

View 4 launches

Forum

p/firebase

Awards

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SocialFacebook Wellfound X

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Based on 217 reviews

Review Firebase?

Reviewers mostly see Firebase as a fast way to ship, especially for auth, Firestore, realtime features, and cross-platform apps, with several users praising low costs, solid APIs, and documentation that helps them get moving. Makers of Kipps AI, AskNeo, and rtrvr.ai also point to push notifications, quick iteration, built-in auth, and scaling. The main complaints are rising complexity tied to Google Cloud, billing and configuration anxiety, weak beginner friendliness, read limits, analytics friction, and Firestore’s awkward fit for relational data.

+215

Summarized with AI

Pros

authentication (24)

scalable backend (24)

real-time database (19)

analytics (11)

fast performance (11)

easy setup (10)

cloud storage (5)

Firestore (5)

Crashlytics (3)

Google Cloud integration (3)

Cons

complex setup (2)

Pros

Cons

Reviews

All Reviews

Most Informative

•25 reviews

What's great

fast performance (11)easy setup (10)cloud storage (5)analytics (11)scalable backend (24)authentication (24)real-time database (19)

Firebase lets you go from idea to working backend in minutes. Auth, real-time database, cloud storage, hosting, analytics, it's all preconfigured and works together out of the box. For MVPs and prototypes, nothing else gets you to market faster. The real-time sync is genuinely magical for collaborative features, and the free tier is generous enough to validate ideas before spending a penny.

What needs improvement

price predictability (1)

Pricing predictability is the biggest issue, it's easy to get surprise bills if a real-time listener goes haywire or a function gets hammered. The documentation is sprawling and sometimes inconsistent between older and newer SDK versions. Vendor lock-in is real, migrating off Firebase is painful once you're deep in Firestore. And the emulator suite, while helpful, doesn't perfectly replicate production behaviour, which leads to "works locally, breaks in prod" moments.

vs Alternatives

Supabase

Supabase was the main alternative, open-source, Postgres-based, and more transparent on pricing. AWS Amplify for the full AWS ecosystem. For auth specifically, Auth0 and Clerk. I ended up moving to Supabase for production work because I wanted SQL, row-level security, and predictable pricing, but Firebase is still my go-to for rapid prototyping and hackathons.

Ratings

Ease of use

Reliability

Value for money

Customization

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5d ago

used Firebase to build Retina instead of Supabase, Convex

•3 reviews

Firebase handles Retina's auth, license sync across a user's devices, and crash telemetry. Single SDK for an Electron app, generous free tier, and Google-backed reliability we don't have to babysit. Supabase was the closest second — Postgres familiarity is nice — but Firebase's real-time sync and offline-first handling for a desktop app was the bigger fit. Convex was tempting but the platform lock-in gave me pause.

Alternatives Considered

Supabase

Convex

Report

3 views5d ago

used Firebase to build QuitSugar

•6 reviews

Firebase simplifies the heavy lifting of backend tasks like authentication, notifications, and real-time database management. Its ready-to-use authentication service with Google and email login saved hours of development time compared to rolling out custom solutions. Firebase's real-time database capabilities enable instant syncing of user progress and collaborative challenges, making it perfect for the social features in Quit Sugar. Its tight integration with Flutter made it a natural choice over alternatives like AWS Amplify.