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Cloudinary vs Firebase: What are the differences?
Developers describe Cloudinary as "An end-to-end image & video management solution for your web and mobile applications". Cloudinary is a cloud-based service that streamlines websites and mobile applications' entire image and video management needs - uploads, storage, administration, manipulations, and delivery. 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.
Cloudinary and Firebase are primarily classified as "Image Processing and Management" and "Realtime Backend / API" tools respectively.
Some of the features offered by Cloudinary are:
- Upload images to a cloud-based storage
- Upload video to cloud-based storage
- Automatic backup and revision tracking
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 setup" is the primary reason why developers consider Cloudinary 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 & 997 developers stacks; compared to Cloudinary, which is listed in 115 company stacks and 39 developer stacks.
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
Pros of Cloudinary
- Easy setup37
- Fast image delivery31
- Vast array of image manipulation capabilities26
- Free tier21
- Heroku add-on11
- Reduce development costs9
- Amazing support7
- Heroku plugin6
- Great libraries for all languages6
- Virtually limitless scale6
- Easy to integrate with Rails5
- Cheap4
- Shot setup time3
- Very easy setup3
- Solves alot of image problems.2
- Best in the market and includes free plan1
- Extremely generous free pricing tier1
- Fast image delivery, vast array0
Pros of Firebase
- Realtime backend made easy370
- Fast and responsive269
- Easy setup241
- Real-time214
- JSON191
- Free134
- Backed by google127
- Angular adaptor82
- Reliable68
- Great customer support36
- Great documentation32
- Real-time synchronization25
- Mobile friendly21
- Rapid prototyping18
- Great security14
- Automatic scaling12
- Freakingly awesome11
- Chat8
- Super fast development8
- Angularfire is an amazing addition!8
- Built in user auth/oauth6
- Awesome next-gen backend6
- Firebase hosting6
- Ios adaptor6
- Speed of light4
- Very easy to use4
- Brilliant for startups3
- Great3
- It's made development super fast3
- JS Offline and Sync suport2
- Push notification2
- Free hosting2
- Cloud functions2
- Low battery consumption2
- The concurrent updates create a great experience2
- .net2
- I can quickly create static web apps with no backend2
- Great all-round functionality2
- Free authentication solution2
- Simple and easy1
- Google's support1
- Free SSL1
- Faster workflow1
- Easy to use1
- Large1
- Easy Reactjs integration1
- Serverless1
- Good Free Limits1
- CDN & cache out of the box1
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Cons of Cloudinary
- Paid plan is expensive5
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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