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Firebase vs Visual Studio App Center: What are the differences?
What is 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.
What is Visual Studio App Center? Continuous everything – Build, Tes, Deploy, Engage, Repeat. Automate the lifecycle of your iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS apps. Connect your repo and within minutes build in the cloud, test on thousands of real devices, distribute to beta testers and app stores, and monitor real-world usage with crash and analytics data. All in one place.
Firebase belongs to "Realtime Backend / API" category of the tech stack, while Visual Studio App Center can be primarily classified under "Continuous Integration".
Some of the features offered by Firebase are:
- 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.
On the other hand, Visual Studio App Center provides the following key features:
- Build
- Test
- Distribute
According to the StackShare community, Firebase has a broader approval, being mentioned in 1215 company stacks & 4651 developers stacks; compared to Visual Studio App Center, which is listed in 4 company stacks and 4 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.
FirebaseI 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.
AblyHello 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
Pros of Firebase
- Realtime backend made easy367
- Fast and responsive268
- Easy setup239
- Real-time212
- JSON188
- Free132
- Backed by google126
- Angular adaptor82
- Reliable67
- Great customer support35
- Great documentation30
- Real-time synchronization25
- Mobile friendly21
- Rapid prototyping18
- Great security14
- Automatic scaling12
- Freakingly awesome11
- Super fast development8
- Angularfire is an amazing addition!8
- Chat8
- Built in user auth/oauth6
- Firebase hosting6
- Ios adaptor6
- Awesome next-gen backend6
- Speed of light4
- Very easy to use4
- It's made development super fast3
- Great3
- Brilliant for startups3
- The concurrent updates create a great experience2
- Cloud functions2
- Free hosting2
- Push notification2
- Free authentication solution2
- JS Offline and Sync suport2
- Low battery consumption2
- I can quickly create static web apps with no backend2
- Great all-round functionality2
- Large1
- Easy to use1
- Free SSL1
- CDN & cache out of the box1
- Faster workflow1
- .net1
- Easy Reactjs integration1
- Google's support1
- Good Free Limits1
- Serverless1
Pros of Visual Studio App Center
- Con1
- Show error issues for mobile devices1
- Slack integration1
- Bug tracking integration1
- For Mobile apps diagnostics and tracking1
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Cons of Firebase
- Can become expensive31
- No open source, you depend on external company15
- Scalability is not infinite15
- Not Flexible Enough9
- Cant filter queries6
- Very unstable server3
- No Relational Data3
- No offline sync2
- Too many errors2
Cons of Visual Studio App Center
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What is Firebase?
What is Visual Studio App Center?
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What companies use Firebase?
What companies use Visual Studio App Center?
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What tools integrate with Visual Studio App Center?
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