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Auth0 vs Firebase: What are the differences?
Auth0: Token-based Single Sign On for your Apps and APIs with social, databases and enterprise identities. A set of unified APIs and tools that instantly enables Single Sign On and user management to all your applications; Firebase: 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.
Auth0 can be classified as a tool in the "User Management and Authentication" category, while Firebase is grouped under "Realtime Backend / API".
Some of the features offered by Auth0 are:
- User and Password support with verification and forgot password email workflow
- Painless SAML Auth with Enterprises
- Integration with 20+ Social Providers
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.
"JSON web token" is the primary reason why developers consider Auth0 over the competitors, whereas "Realtime backend made easy" was stated as the key factor in picking Firebase.
Instacart, 9GAG, and Twitch are some of the popular companies that use Firebase, whereas Auth0 is used by Binary.com, Chattermill, and White Rabbit Express. Firebase has a broader approval, being mentioned in 859 company stacks & 997 developers stacks; compared to Auth0, which is listed in 121 company stacks and 55 developer stacks.
Currently, Passport.js repo has 324 open issues, and Jared (the original author) seems to be the one doing most of the work. Also, given that the documentation is not proper. Is it worth using Passport.js?
As of now, StackShare shows it has 29 companies using it. How do you implement auth in your project or your company? Are there any good alternatives to Passport.js? Should I implement auth from scratch?
I would recommend Auth0 only if you are willing to shell out money. You can keep up with their free version only for a very limited time and as per our experience as a growing startup where budget is an issue, their support was not very helpful as they first asked us to sign a commercial agreement even before helping us t o find out whether Auth0 fits our use case or not! But otherwise Auth0 is a great platform to speed up authentication. In our case we had to move to alternatives like Casbin for multi-tenant authorization!
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.
I would recommend looking hard into Firebase for this project, especially if you do not have dedicated full-stack or backend members on your team.
The real time database, as you mentioned, is a great option, but I would also look into Firestore. Similar to RTDB, it adds more functions and some cool methods as well. Also, another great thing about Firebase is you have easy access to storage and dead simple auth as well.
Node.js Express MongoDB Socket.IO and Apollo are great technologies as well, and may be the better option if you do not wish to cede as much control to third parties in your application.
Overall, I say if you wish to focus more time developing your React application instead of other parts of your stack, Firebase is a great way to do that.
Hello Noam 👋,
I suggest taking a look at Ably, it has all the realtime features you need and the platform is designed to guarantee critical functionality at scale.
Here is an in depth comparison between Ably and Firebase
Hey Noam,
I would recommend you to take a look into 8base. It has features you've requested, also relation database and GraphQL API which will help you to develop rapidly.
Thanks, Ilya
I started our team on Amazon Cognito because I was a Solutions Architect at AWS and found it really easy to follow the tutorials and get a basic app up and running with it.
When our team started working with it, they very quickly became frustrated because of the poor documentation. After 4 days of trying to get all the basic passwordless auth working, our lead engineer made the decision to abandon it and try Auth0... and managed to get everything implemented in 4 hours.
The consensus was that Cognito just isn't mature enough or well-documented, and that the implementation does not cater for real world use cases the way that it should. I believe Amplify has made some of this simpler, but I would still recommend Auth0 as it's been bulletproof for us, and is a sensible price.
Pros of Auth0
- JSON web token70
- Integration with 20+ Social Providers31
- SDKs20
- It's a universal solution20
- Amazing Documentation15
- Heroku Add-on11
- Enterprise support8
- Extend platform with "rules"7
- Great Sample Repos7
- Azure Add-on4
- Easy integration, non-intrusive identity provider3
- Passwordless3
- It can integrate seamlessly with firebase2
- Great documentation, samples, UX and Angular support2
- Polished2
- On-premise deployment2
- Will sign BAA for HIPAA-compliance1
- MFA1
- Active Directory support1
- Springboot1
- SOC21
- SAML Support1
- Great support1
- OpenID Connect (OIDC) Support1
Pros of Firebase
- Realtime backend made easy369
- Fast and responsive268
- Easy setup240
- Real-time213
- JSON188
- Free133
- Backed by google126
- Angular adaptor82
- Reliable67
- Great customer support35
- Great documentation31
- Real-time synchronization25
- Mobile friendly21
- Rapid prototyping18
- Great security14
- Automatic scaling12
- Freakingly awesome11
- Angularfire is an amazing addition!8
- Super fast development8
- Chat8
- Firebase hosting6
- Built in user auth/oauth6
- Awesome next-gen backend6
- Ios adaptor6
- Very easy to use4
- Speed of light4
- Great3
- It's made development super fast3
- Brilliant for startups3
- .net2
- JS Offline and Sync suport2
- Low battery consumption2
- Push notification2
- Free hosting2
- Cloud functions2
- The concurrent updates create a great experience2
- I can quickly create static web apps with no backend2
- Great all-round functionality2
- Free authentication solution2
- CDN & cache out of the box1
- Google's support1
- Simple and easy1
- Faster workflow1
- Free SSL1
- Easy Reactjs integration1
- Easy to use1
- Large1
- Serverless1
- Good Free Limits1
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Cons of Auth0
- Pricing too high (Developer Pro)14
- Poor support7
- Status page not reflect actual status4
- Rapidly changing API3
Cons of Firebase
- Can become expensive31
- No open source, you depend on external company16
- Scalability is not infinite15
- Not Flexible Enough9
- Cant filter queries7
- Very unstable server3
- No Relational Data3
- Too many errors2
- No offline sync2
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