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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.

Advice on Auth0 and Firebase
Needs advice
on
Auth0Auth0
and
PassportPassport

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?

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Replies (1)
Recommends
on
Auth0Auth0

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!

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Needs advice
on
ApolloApolloFirebaseFirebase
and
Socket.IOSocket.IO

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.

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Replies (3)
Timothy Malstead
Junior Full Stack Developer at Freelance · | 7 upvotes · 442.3K views
Recommends
on
FirebaseFirebase

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.

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Recommends
on
AblyAbly

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

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Recommends
on
8base8base

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

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Decisions about Auth0 and Firebase
Brent Maxwell
Migrated
from
Amazon CognitoAmazon Cognito
to
Auth0Auth0

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.

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Pros of Auth0
Pros of Firebase
  • 70
    JSON web token
  • 31
    Integration with 20+ Social Providers
  • 20
    SDKs
  • 20
    It's a universal solution
  • 15
    Amazing Documentation
  • 11
    Heroku Add-on
  • 8
    Enterprise support
  • 7
    Great Sample Repos
  • 7
    Extend platform with "rules"
  • 4
    Azure Add-on
  • 3
    Easy integration, non-intrusive identity provider
  • 3
    Passwordless
  • 2
    It can integrate seamlessly with firebase
  • 2
    Great documentation, samples, UX and Angular support
  • 2
    Polished
  • 2
    On-premise deployment
  • 1
    Will sign BAA for HIPAA-compliance
  • 1
    MFA
  • 1
    Active Directory support
  • 1
    Springboot
  • 1
    SOC2
  • 1
    SAML Support
  • 1
    Great support
  • 1
    OpenID Connect (OIDC) Support
  • 370
    Realtime backend made easy
  • 269
    Fast and responsive
  • 241
    Easy setup
  • 214
    Real-time
  • 191
    JSON
  • 134
    Free
  • 127
    Backed by google
  • 82
    Angular adaptor
  • 68
    Reliable
  • 36
    Great customer support
  • 32
    Great documentation
  • 25
    Real-time synchronization
  • 21
    Mobile friendly
  • 18
    Rapid prototyping
  • 14
    Great security
  • 12
    Automatic scaling
  • 11
    Freakingly awesome
  • 8
    Chat
  • 8
    Super fast development
  • 8
    Angularfire is an amazing addition!
  • 6
    Built in user auth/oauth
  • 6
    Awesome next-gen backend
  • 6
    Firebase hosting
  • 6
    Ios adaptor
  • 4
    Speed of light
  • 4
    Very easy to use
  • 3
    Brilliant for startups
  • 3
    Great
  • 3
    It's made development super fast
  • 2
    JS Offline and Sync suport
  • 2
    Push notification
  • 2
    Free hosting
  • 2
    Cloud functions
  • 2
    Low battery consumption
  • 2
    The concurrent updates create a great experience
  • 2
    .net
  • 2
    I can quickly create static web apps with no backend
  • 2
    Great all-round functionality
  • 2
    Free authentication solution
  • 1
    Simple and easy
  • 1
    Google's support
  • 1
    Free SSL
  • 1
    Faster workflow
  • 1
    Easy to use
  • 1
    Large
  • 1
    Easy Reactjs integration
  • 1
    Serverless
  • 1
    Good Free Limits
  • 1
    CDN & cache out of the box

Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

Cons of Auth0
Cons of Firebase
  • 14
    Pricing too high (Developer Pro)
  • 7
    Poor support
  • 4
    Rapidly changing API
  • 4
    Status page not reflect actual status
  • 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
  • 3
    Very unstable server
  • 3
    No Relational Data
  • 2
    Too many errors
  • 2
    No offline sync

Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

What is Auth0?

A set of unified APIs and tools that instantly enables Single Sign On and user management to all your applications.

What is Firebase?

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.

Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

Jobs that mention Auth0 and Firebase as a desired skillset
What companies use Auth0?
What companies use Firebase?
See which teams inside your own company are using Auth0 or Firebase.
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What tools integrate with Firebase?

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Blog Posts

Sep 29 2020 at 7:36PM

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What are some alternatives to Auth0 and Firebase?
Stormpath
Stormpath is an authentication and user management service that helps development teams quickly and securely build web and mobile applications and services.
Amazon Cognito
You can create unique identities for your users through a number of public login providers (Amazon, Facebook, and Google) and also support unauthenticated guests. You can save app data locally on users’ devices allowing your applications to work even when the devices are offline.
Okta
Connect all your apps in days, not months, with instant access to thousands of pre-built integrations - even add apps to the network yourself. Integrations are easy to set up, constantly monitored, proactively repaired and handle authentication and provisioning.
Keycloak
It is an Open Source Identity and Access Management For Modern Applications and Services. It adds authentication to applications and secure services with minimum fuss. No need to deal with storing users or authenticating users. It's all available out of the box.
OAuth.io
OAuth is a protocol that aimed to provide a single secure recipe to manage authorizations. It is now used by almost every web application. However, 30+ different implementations coexist. OAuth.io fixes this massive problem by acting as a universal adapter, thanks to a robust API. With OAuth.io integrating OAuth takes minutes instead of hours or days.
See all alternatives