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Firebase vs Google Cloud Storage: What are the differences?
Introduction
Firebase and Google Cloud Storage are both cloud-based services provided by Google, but they have some key differences that set them apart.
Pricing and Usage: Firebase provides a flexible pricing model, where you pay for the resources you use, such as storage, bandwidth, and server costs. On the other hand, Google Cloud Storage has a separate pricing structure that is more focused on storing and retrieving large amounts of static data.
Functionality: Firebase is a complete backend solution that offers a wide range of features for building web and mobile applications, including real-time database, authentication, hosting, and more. Google Cloud Storage, on the other hand, is a standalone storage service that primarily focuses on storing and retrieving data.
Scalability and Performance: Firebase provides automatic scaling and high availability, ensuring that your applications can handle traffic spikes and serve content quickly. Google Cloud Storage also offers scalable storage and high throughput, but it is primarily designed for storing and serving static files.
Ease of Use: Firebase is designed to be beginner-friendly and provides an intuitive user interface, along with client SDKs for various platforms that make it easy to integrate Firebase services into your applications. Google Cloud Storage, on the other hand, is more focused on developers and provides APIs and tools for managing and accessing your storage resources.
Integration with Other Google Cloud Services: Firebase is tightly integrated with other Google Cloud services, such as Cloud Functions, Cloud Firestore, and Cloud Machine Learning Engine, allowing you to easily extend the functionality of your applications. Google Cloud Storage can also be integrated with other Google Cloud services, but it is not as tightly coupled as Firebase.
Data Queries and Transactions: Firebase provides a real-time database that allows you to query and manipulate data in real-time, making it suitable for applications that require real-time updates. Google Cloud Storage does not offer built-in support for querying or updating data in real-time and is better suited for storing and serving static files.
In summary, Firebase is a comprehensive backend solution that offers a wide range of features for building web and mobile applications, while Google Cloud Storage is a standalone storage service primarily focused on storing and retrieving static files.
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
We choose Backblaze B2 because it makes more sense for storing static assets.
We admire Backblaze's customer service & transparency, plus, we trust them to maintain fair business practices - including not raising prices in the future.
Lower storage costs means we can keep more data for longer, and lower bandwidth means cache misses don't cost a ton.
We offer our customer HIPAA compliant storage. After analyzing the market, we decided to go with Google Storage. The Nodejs API is ok, still not ES6 and can be very confusing to use. For each new customer, we created a different bucket so they can have individual data and not have to worry about data loss. After 1000+ customers we started seeing many problems with the creation of new buckets, with saving or retrieving a new file. Many false positive: the Promise returned ok, but in reality, it failed.
That's why we switched to S3 that just works.
Pros of Firebase
- Realtime backend made easy371
- Fast and responsive270
- Easy setup242
- Real-time215
- JSON191
- Free134
- Backed by google128
- Angular adaptor83
- Reliable68
- Great customer support36
- Great documentation32
- Real-time synchronization25
- Mobile friendly21
- Rapid prototyping19
- Great security14
- Automatic scaling12
- Freakingly awesome11
- Super fast development8
- Angularfire is an amazing addition!8
- Chat8
- Firebase hosting6
- Built in user auth/oauth6
- Awesome next-gen backend6
- Ios adaptor6
- Speed of light4
- Very easy to use4
- Great3
- It's made development super fast3
- Brilliant for startups3
- Free hosting2
- Cloud functions2
- JS Offline and Sync suport2
- Low battery consumption2
- .net2
- The concurrent updates create a great experience2
- Push notification2
- I can quickly create static web apps with no backend2
- Great all-round functionality2
- Free authentication solution2
- Easy Reactjs integration1
- Google's support1
- Free SSL1
- CDN & cache out of the box1
- Easy to use1
- Large1
- Faster workflow1
- Serverless1
- Good Free Limits1
- Simple and easy1
Pros of Google Cloud Storage
- Scalable28
- Cheap19
- Reliable14
- Easy9
- Chealp3
- More praticlal and easy2
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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
Cons of Google Cloud Storage
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