Appcelerator vs Firebase: What are the differences?

Developers describe Appcelerator as "Build network-connected mobile applications across native platforms and the web". Appcelerator is the first mobile platform to combine the flexibility of open source development technologies with the power of cloud services. On the other hand, Firebase is detailed as "The Realtime App Platform". 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.

Appcelerator belongs to "Mobile Backend" category of the tech stack, while Firebase can be primarily classified under "Realtime Backend / API".

Some of the features offered by Appcelerator are:

• Library of over 20 pre-built common services that are both proven and robust, to reduce integration time and risk, services such as push notification, status updates, photo storage, and social integration, or create your own custom cloud services.
• Client-side APIs for any development platform (e.g. Titanium, iOS SDK, Android SDK)
• Extensibility enabling you to build your own custom cloud application development services in Node.js on the Appcelerator cloud for all your mobile apps.

On the other hand, Firebase provides the following key features:

• 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.

"Easy to learn" is the primary reason why developers consider Appcelerator over the competitors, whereas "Realtime backend made easy" was stated as the key factor in picking Firebase.

According to the StackShare community, Firebase has a broader approval, being mentioned in 859 company stacks & 992 developers stacks; compared to Appcelerator, which is listed in 12 company stacks and 3 developer stacks.