So over the past few months now I have been diving into the deep end with Vue. With this, I have started to figure out the extreme usefulness of firebase to spin up a database.
I have found being able to do a simple api call and have everything set up for you so convenient. As it allows me to rapidly prototype my project without dealing with the added back end. I found it even more satisfying how quickly I can use authentication tokens. Rather than having to again set up my own back end to handle session IDs ect.
However, I do currently look at this as a prototype as I can see that this probably would get expensive for separate hosting ect. Rather than using a normal domain hosting with SQL ect and PHP. I will say that its great though if you are wanting to stay within the front-end realm.
What do you all think? What are the drawbacks of using this service? What do you all think the pros to it? Really curious to see the community's thoughts.
Top comments (8)
I think the largest drawback is the pricing the more your app scales. As a service in general, itβs remarkable for quickly prototyping and deploying fully functional apps, but their pricepoints for more users get quite high.
Yea I have come to the conclusion that tools like digital ocean firebase Heroku ect. And like all of these other microservices are just flat out not meant for small creators to just go and launch an app. Because of the pricing, I feel like they become really handy in large scale companies. But alot of this to is the reason why I also really just stick with normal server hosting with unlimited domain and database etc. If im going to launch any thing bigger outside a portfolio project.
They literally have free tiers, and then then the pricing is very decent?
I don't think dedicated hosting beats it in price at any scale, it's just that you might want more flexibility/tunability and access control in large projects.
When do you mean it would get expensive? What's the size of your data?
In my opinion, firebase is good, it saves you a lot of time. But, for complex applications, it might become expensive and hard to use (limited in some ways).
If you're using PHP, you can try something like Heroku (also can become pretty expensive).
Or digital ocean (more developer-friendly) or was.
As for the database, I find no-sql databases (MongoDB for example) more helpful at the beginning(faster to develop). For mongo, you can use cloud.mongodb.com (they have a free plan).
So, to wrap things up, I think firebase is great for prototypes and not very complex applications.
I like Firebase but second the potential issues with cost. It is great for small apps though and the emulator makes dev super slick. Here is an alternative that I have been reading about. supabase.io/
I only use the free tier so far
It is good for making your portfolio online without any costs
I love the realtime database. Seeing your UI react to changes is cool.
Firebase is not bad. It provides a platform that lets you rapidly create applications with a mobile-first approach.