StackShareStackShare
Follow on
StackShare

Discover and share technology stacks from companies around the world.

Follow on

© 2025 StackShare. All rights reserved.

Product

  • Stacks
  • Tools
  • Feed

Company

  • About
  • Contact

Legal

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Platform as a Service
  4. Realtime Backend API
  5. Apollo vs Backand vs Firebase

Apollo vs Backand vs Firebase

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Firebase
Firebase
Stacks42.5K
Followers36.0K
Votes2.0K
Backand
Backand
Stacks22
Followers51
Votes9
Apollo
Apollo
Stacks2.7K
Followers1.8K
Votes25

Share your Stack

Help developers discover the tools you use. Get visibility for your team's tech choices and contribute to the community's knowledge.

View Docs
CLI (Node.js)
or
Manual

Advice on Firebase, Backand, Apollo

Jared
Jared

Contractor at Insight Global

Aug 9, 2019

ReviewonFirebaseFirebase

I started using Firebase over 5 years ago because of the 'real-time' nature. I originally used to use Real Time Database, but now I use Cloud Firestore. I recommend using the Google Firebase PaaS to quickly develop or prototype small to enterprise level web/mobile applications. Since Google purchased Firebase, it has exploded and it growing rapidly. I also find some level of comfort that it is Backed by Google.

272k views272k
Comments
Noam
Noam

Jul 16, 2020

Needs adviceonNode.jsNode.jsExpressJSExpressJSReactReact

We are starting to work on a web-based platform aiming to connect artists (clients) and professional freelancers (service providers). In-app, timeline-based, real-time communication between users (& storing it), file transfers, and push notifications are essential core features. We are considering using Node.js, ExpressJS, React, MongoDB stack with Socket.IO & Apollo, or maybe using Real-Time Database and functionalities of Firebase.

1.15M views1.15M
Comments
Márton
Márton

CTO at Media4Care

Aug 31, 2020

Decided

We wanted to save as much time as possible when writing our back-end, therefore Apollo was out of the question, we went for an auto-generated API instead. Hasura looked good in the beginning, but we wanted to retain the ability to add a few manual resolvers and modifications to auto-generated ones, which ruled out Hasura. Postgraphile with its Plug-In architecture was the right choice for us, we never regretted it!

37.1k views37.1k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Firebase
Firebase
Backand
Backand
Apollo
Apollo

Firebase is a cloud service designed to power real-time, collaborative applications. Simply add the Firebase library to your application to gain access to a shared data structure; any changes you make to that data are automatically synchronized with the Firebase cloud and with other clients within milliseconds.

Backand is a powerful backend-as-a-service for AngularJS that provides out-of-the-box social login, push notifications, Ionic integration and much more.

Build a universal GraphQL API on top of your existing REST APIs, so you can ship new application features fast without waiting on backend changes.

Add the Firebase library to your app and get access to a shared data structure. Any changes made to that data are automatically synchronized with the Firebase cloud and with other clients within milliseconds.;Firebase apps can be written entirely with client-side code, update in real-time out-of-the-box, interoperate well with existing services, scale automatically, and provide strong data security.;Data Accessibility- Data is stored as JSON in Firebase. Every piece of data has its own URL which can be used in Firebase's client libraries and as a REST endpoint. These URLs can also be entered into a browser to view the data and watch it update in real-time.;Real-time Synchronization- Firebase takes a new approach to the way data is moved around an app. Rather than using a traditional request & response model, it works by synchronizing data between devices. Whenever your data changes, all clients are immediately notified within milliseconds. The synchronized data is also persisted, allowing new clients to be immediately updated.;First-class Data Security- Traditional applications intermix security code with application code, whereas Firebase treats security as a first-class feature. You define your security policies in one place using a flexible rules language, and Firebase ensures that they are consistently enforced across all parts of your application. Having all your security logic in one place allows for easy auditing and helps you avoid security mistakes. The safety and security of your data is our top priority.;Automatic Scaling- The Firebase API is built from the ground up for performance and scale. Whenever your data changes, Firebase calculates the minimum set of updates required to keep all your clients in sync. In addition, all Firebase API functions are designed to scale linearly with the size of the data being synchronized. More importantly, Firebase handles all of the scaling and operations for you. Your app will scale from its first user to its first million without any code changes.;Servers are Optional- Firebase can provide all of the data storage, control, and transmission needs of most apps. In many cases, Firebase can completely replace your server and server-side code. This means you no longer need to build complicated backend software and can instead focus on your application logic and your customers.
Data Storage: Work with JSON models, complex as you like, and let Backand add or edit the data for you.; REST API for any Database: Backand automatically generates a REST API for any database, including MySQL, PostgreSQL and MS SQL Server.; Advanced Data Models: Backand lets you create sophisticated data models with a single click, including parent-child relationships, many-to-many.; Server-Side Logic: Create sophisticated server-side actions code in a snap. Triggers and on-demand actions can launch JavaScript code, send emails or execute transactional SQL scripts.; Security & User Management: Backand provides a rich set of out-of-the-box security and user management features, including social signup, email verification, role-based security, active directory integration and more.; Integration to 3rd-party services: Backand comes pre-integrated with many popular tools and services. Backand provides web-hooks so that you can integrate your own.; Web platforms: AngularJs and ionic.; Hosting: Backand is fully-managed and runs in the cloud, including all of your server-side, front-end and database.;
-
Statistics
Stacks
42.5K
Stacks
22
Stacks
2.7K
Followers
36.0K
Followers
51
Followers
1.8K
Votes
2.0K
Votes
9
Votes
25
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 371
    Realtime backend made easy
  • 270
    Fast and responsive
  • 242
    Easy setup
  • 215
    Real-time
  • 191
    JSON
Cons
  • 31
    Can become expensive
  • 16
    No open source, you depend on external company
  • 15
    Scalability is not infinite
  • 9
    Not Flexible Enough
  • 7
    Cant filter queries
Pros
  • 4
    Easy setup
  • 4
    Let's you focus on the frontend and have killer backend
  • 1
    Ready-to-use backend in no time
Pros
  • 12
    From the creators of Meteor
  • 8
    Great documentation
  • 3
    Open source
  • 2
    Real time if use subscription
Cons
  • 1
    Increase in complexity of implementing (subscription)
  • 1
    File upload is not supported
Integrations
Trigger.io
Trigger.io
Famo.us
Famo.us
Backbone.js
Backbone.js
Ember.js
Ember.js
AngularJS
AngularJS
React
React
Ionic
Ionic
Mandrill
Mandrill
AngularJS
AngularJS
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL
MongoDB
MongoDB
Amazon SNS
Amazon SNS
MySQL
MySQL
Stripe
Stripe
Heroku Postgres
Heroku Postgres
Microsoft SQL Server
Microsoft SQL Server
GraphQL
GraphQL

What are some alternatives to Firebase, Backand, Apollo?

Heroku

Heroku

Heroku is a cloud application platform – a new way of building and deploying web apps. Heroku lets app developers spend 100% of their time on their application code, not managing servers, deployment, ongoing operations, or scaling.

Clever Cloud

Clever Cloud

Clever Cloud is a polyglot cloud application platform. The service helps developers to build applications with many languages and services, with auto-scaling features and a true pay-as-you-go pricing model.

Socket.IO

Socket.IO

It enables real-time bidirectional event-based communication. It works on every platform, browser or device, focusing equally on reliability and speed.

Google App Engine

Google App Engine

Google has a reputation for highly reliable, high performance infrastructure. With App Engine you can take advantage of the 10 years of knowledge Google has in running massively scalable, performance driven systems. App Engine applications are easy to build, easy to maintain, and easy to scale as your traffic and data storage needs grow.

Red Hat OpenShift

Red Hat OpenShift

OpenShift is Red Hat's Cloud Computing Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering. OpenShift is an application platform in the cloud where application developers and teams can build, test, deploy, and run their applications.

Blazor

Blazor

Blazor is a .NET web framework that runs in any browser. You author Blazor apps using C#/Razor and HTML.

Stamplay

Stamplay

The API-based development platform enabling developers to do 80% of the job in 1% of the time thanks to: out of the box APIs for users and data, one-click integration with any API, scalable infrastructure and SDKs. Build Rome in a day.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk

AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Once you upload your application, Elastic Beanstalk automatically handles the deployment details of capacity provisioning, load balancing, auto-scaling, and application health monitoring.

PubNub

PubNub

PubNub makes it easy for you to add real-time capabilities to your apps, without worrying about the infrastructure. Build apps that allow your users to engage in real-time across mobile, browser, desktop and server.

Pusher

Pusher

Pusher is the category leader in delightful APIs for app developers building communication and collaboration features.

Related Comparisons

Bootstrap
Materialize

Bootstrap vs Materialize

Laravel
Django

Django vs Laravel vs Node.js

Bootstrap
Foundation

Bootstrap vs Foundation vs Material UI

Node.js
Spring Boot

Node.js vs Spring-Boot

Liquibase
Flyway

Flyway vs Liquibase