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Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

firebase.googleblog.com

31–40 of 214 posts

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#31
post #7
post #2

This may be a stupid question, but: What do you use it for? Cannot everyone basically edit the client code and do whatever with your data? I've only used Firebase for prototyping.

The realtime database is IMO very cool and it's definitely worth it just for that, but integrated analytics and cloud notifications takes it to the next level.

We hope you'll give the new features a try and let us know what you think!

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#32
post #4

(firebase founder here) I’m thrilled to finally be able to show everyone what we’ve been working on over the last 18 months! When I said “big things are coming” in the HN comments back when our acquisition was announced, I was talking about today : ) We’re really excited about these new products. There are some big advances on the development side, with a new storage solution, integrated push messaging, remote config…

Is there an Open Source version of Firebase which we can use on our own hardware if we wish to? Vendor lock-in is the biggest fear I have with Firebase.

Like Facebook (Parse), if Google also decides that Firebase is not profitable and decides to close down, how do we run our applications without rewriting?

How do we protect ourselves, if Google decides to increase the price of Firebase 3-4 times in a single day?

Even just a public pledge from Google saying that they will open source the full featured Firebase if they decide to close down the devision will go a long way to alleviate this fear.

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#33

way too risky to use it for startups. Google may discontinue this project at any time and you have to spend months to rewrite everything for another database. IF google open source it and we will be able to install it on premise and patch without Google, that would be ok. So, I would recommend to use PostgreSQL instead.

Google is dogfooding this in it's other companies, like Nest, fwiw.

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#34
post #4

(firebase founder here) I’m thrilled to finally be able to show everyone what we’ve been working on over the last 18 months! When I said “big things are coming” in the HN comments back when our acquisition was announced, I was talking about today : ) We’re really excited about these new products. There are some big advances on the development side, with a new storage solution, integrated push messaging, remote config…

I was on the fence about using Firebase for my new project...I'm no in the fence anymore! Congrats, this looks awesome!

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#35

way too risky to use it for startups. Google may discontinue this project at any time and you have to spend months to rewrite everything for another database. IF google open source it and we will be able to install it on premise and patch without Google, that would be ok. So, I would recommend to use PostgreSQL instead.

Recommend looking at Rethinkdb :) They just announced Horizon too.

Yes, this may be a good option. I just never tried it or worked with it, so I can't say anything about it.

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#36
post #4

(firebase founder here) I’m thrilled to finally be able to show everyone what we’ve been working on over the last 18 months! When I said “big things are coming” in the HN comments back when our acquisition was announced, I was talking about today : ) We’re really excited about these new products. There are some big advances on the development side, with a new storage solution, integrated push messaging, remote config…

Is there an Open Source version of Firebase which we can use on our own hardware if we wish to? Vendor lock-in is the biggest fear I have with Firebase. Like Facebook (Parse), if Google also decides that Firebase is not profitable and decides to close down, how do we run our applications without rewriting? How do we protect ourselves, if Google decides to increase the price of Firebase 3-4 times in a single day? Even…

I think it's less likely to happen here because Google is investing heavily in building a business around developer services.

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#37
post #4

(firebase founder here) I’m thrilled to finally be able to show everyone what we’ve been working on over the last 18 months! When I said “big things are coming” in the HN comments back when our acquisition was announced, I was talking about today : ) We’re really excited about these new products. There are some big advances on the development side, with a new storage solution, integrated push messaging, remote config…

We changed the URL to that blog post from https://firebase.google.com/, since it gives the background.

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#38
post #4

(firebase founder here) I’m thrilled to finally be able to show everyone what we’ve been working on over the last 18 months! When I said “big things are coming” in the HN comments back when our acquisition was announced, I was talking about today : ) We’re really excited about these new products. There are some big advances on the development side, with a new storage solution, integrated push messaging, remote config…

New dashboard look & feel is awesome. Lots to digest from that short keynote, but I'm excited to see Google double-down on its investment (Hi, Facebook). Looks like https://console.firebase.google.com is getting slammed. All of my attempted imports are failing.

[deleted]

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#39
Firebase is an incredibly powerful tool, and in a sense is a "democratizing force" in web development. Now anyone can build a complete web application without needing to know anything about setting up servers, content delivery networks, AWS (which is still quite difficult to use), and scaling. I teach kids as young as 10 years old to build iOS apps and websites with Firebase - they can develop locally and push to Firebase hosting with a single command. After exploring this new update, I can say with confidence that literally everything is easy-to-use now.

Whenever there is a Firebase announcement there are many replies along the lines of "this won't work for me because it's owned by Google, may be discontinued, doesn't have on-premise solution, etc". If these are your thoughts then you are missing the point of Firebase. It enables small web development shops like mine to focus on building beautiful web applications without having to give up manpower toward backend engineering. The cost of using Firebase is peanuts compared to the savings in employee hours.

Perhaps some day we will have to migrate elsewhere, but I find that possibility extremely unlikely because the clear amount of effort it took to create the Google-y version means this is a long-term play.

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there an Open Source version of Firebase which we can use on our own hardware if we wish to? Vendor lock-in is the biggest fear I have with Firebase. Like Facebook (Parse), if Google also decides that Firebase is not profitable and decides to close down, how do we run our applications without rewriting? How do we protect ourselves, if Google decides to increase the price of Firebase 3-4 times in a single day? Even…

I think it's less likely to happen here because Google is investing heavily in building a business around developer services.

I cannot agree with that. Google Cloud services are way too small comparing to AWS or Azure and they don't make a lot of money with it. They can discontinue it easily.
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