Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!
Firebase vs NATS: What are the differences?
Introduction:
Firebase and NATS are both commonly used technologies for building and managing modern web applications. However, they serve different purposes and have distinct characteristics that differentiate them from each other.
1. Scalability: Firebase is a fully managed platform that scales automatically based on demand, allowing users to focus on building their applications without worrying about infrastructure management. On the other hand, NATS is a lightweight messaging system designed for high-performance, low-latency communication between services, making it a suitable choice for microservices architectures.
2. Real-time Capabilities: Firebase provides real-time database and synchronization services, allowing developers to build applications that update in real time across multiple devices. In contrast, while NATS can support real-time data streaming through its publish-subscribe model, it is primarily focused on efficient communication between services rather than real-time data synchronization.
3. Data Storage: Firebase offers a NoSQL cloud database for storing and syncing data in real time, along with file storage and authentication services. NATS does not provide built-in data storage capabilities; instead, it excels in lightweight messaging for communication between services, including support for request-reply patterns.
4. Complexity: Firebase is known for its simplicity and ease of use, offering a wide range of features and services that integrate seamlessly for application development. NATS is highly performant and lightweight, but may require additional configuration and understanding of messaging patterns to effectively utilize its capabilities.
5. Integration with Other Services: Firebase is designed as an all-in-one platform, offering authentication, analytics, hosting, and other services in addition to its real-time database. NATS focuses on messaging and communication, making it easy to integrate with other services and technologies to enable efficient data exchange between different parts of an application.
6. Use Cases: Firebase is commonly used for building mobile and web applications that require real-time updates, user authentication, and cloud storage. NATS is well-suited for applications with a microservices architecture, distributed systems, IoT devices, and other scenarios where lightweight, high-performance messaging is essential.
In Summary, Firebase excels in real-time capabilities and data storage for web and mobile applications, while NATS is optimized for efficient communication between services in distributed systems and microservices architectures.
We (my team) are building an App where we want to have Bi-directional texting, Single Directional Picture, and audio transfer.
We are building all this using Flutter.
There will essentially be 3 apps, 2 Mobile-based (Android and iOS) and 1 Microsoft Based. We've built up most of the code already, and made a few major mistakes but fixed it(namely had no proper state management).
How things will work:
Person A has a Mobile app 1, Person A presses a button that sends a "communication request" into a Pool of requests. Person B on Desktop App chooses a "communication request" from the pool, and engages in Bi-directional texting with Person A. Person B also opens communication with Person C who is on Mobile app 2, and they engage in Bi-directional texting. Person C will be notified of communication requests through Push Notifications.
So far we've been using Socket.IO, however, I'm starting to think that's not the best.
A problem we've encountered so far is that Person A(Mobile App 1 User), is the person who sends a "communication request" into the "Communication Pool". The Mobile App 1 User, can "cancel" the communication at any point in time. When they do that, I would like for a notification to be sent to Person B, the Desktop User, For them to pick up another communication request.
I am not sure how this should be done however, should it be done in the Back-end, then how does the Front-end get notified of the change?
Any advice on which to choose?
It's so simple when you use Firebase to manage the requests just make new field to the request for example callstate with values like "requesting" "incall" "cancelled" and both A and B can update this field.
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
The start-up guides, tutorials and documentation in general for Firebase are pretty outstanding.
There is 1GB database storage for the free tier as compared to Supabase's 500MB. Not that I think there is anything wrong with Supabase, I intend to try it out someday.
Also if you are doing any sort of personal front-end project, even using a free cluster from MongoDB can be a lot of work and setup, with Firebase (specifically Fire store and Google Authenticator) the implementation of BaaS is quite easy to get up and running.
It's pretty easy to understand the Fires store security rules as well, and if you ever have a hard time trying to figure something out, there is good community support and YouTube tutorials for most topics.
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 prototyping18
- Great security14
- Automatic scaling12
- Freakingly awesome11
- Chat8
- Angularfire is an amazing addition!8
- Super fast development8
- Built in user auth/oauth6
- Firebase hosting6
- Ios adaptor6
- Awesome next-gen backend6
- 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 NATS
- Fastest pub-sub system out there22
- Rock solid16
- Easy to grasp12
- Light-weight4
- Easy, Fast, Secure4
- Robust Security Model2
Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions
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 NATS
- Persistence with Jetstream supported2
- No Order1
- No Persistence1
Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions
What is Firebase?
What is NATS?
Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!
What companies use NATS?
Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions
Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions
Blog Posts
+5