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Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

firebase.googleblog.com

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Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#121

Post by kuschku »

inlined wrote: post #78
pritambarhate wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did this mistake with Parse. The open source version released doesn't have full features and we have run into a few bugs which created a lot of issues. It's better to stick with open source stack. I like what Amazon is doing with AWS with services like RDS and ElastiCache. If one carefully selects the services on AWS, there is almost zero vendor lock in. Google also had hiked the AppEngine price in Sept. 2011 which…

Check out my upcoming talk "Migrate to Firebase", today at 3. I specifically cover how to use new Firebase features to add all the missing Parse product lines back to ParseServer Link: https://events.google.com/io2016/schedule?sid=b4641ff7-0bef-...

And when will Firebase become a product we can self-host? Because until that is the case – or unless people do an SLA regarding Firebase – it has to be considered as reliable as a 2$ VPS.

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#122

Post by gabidobocan »

pritambarhate wrote: post #32
mayop100 wrote: 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…

We were also looking for an open source Firebase a while ago, packed with some extra features like multiple db support and push notifications. Ended up building http://telepat.io.

Docs & specifications at http://docs.telepat.io/. Hope this helps you.

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#123

Post by kuschku »

welanes wrote: post #18
maaaats wrote: 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.

I use it for its main selling point: a realtime backend. With Firebase, Vue-Fire (Firebase bindings for Vue.js), crossfilter and chart.js, you can whip up a functional and sweet analytics dashboard or [insert pet project here] in a weekend. It gets the headache of a backend (and user auth) out of the way. As for security - the Firebase security rules and server side authentication allow you to lock things down.

> With Firebase, Vue-Fire (Firebase bindings for Vue.js), crossfilter and chart.js, you can whip up a functional and sweet analytics dashboard or [insert pet project here] in a weekend.

> It gets the headache of a backend (and user auth) out of the way.

You can get the same if you use other tools.

The realtime stuff is the only big thing they do most other projects don’t, and even for that there are currently several quite well working implementations out there.

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#124

Post by dragonwriter »

kuschku wrote: post #121
inlined wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out my upcoming talk "Migrate to Firebase", today at 3. I specifically cover how to use new Firebase features to add all the missing Parse product lines back to ParseServer Link: https://events.google.com/io2016/schedule?sid=b4641ff7-0bef-...

And when will Firebase become a product we can self-host? Because until that is the case – or unless people do an SLA regarding Firebase – it has to be considered as reliable as a 2$ VPS.

> or unless people do an SLA regarding Firebase

https://www.firebase.com/terms/service-level-agreement.html

Though I think what you are looking for is Firebase being covered by a Deprecation Policy.

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#126

Post by wasd »

toddmorey wrote: post #72
mayop100 wrote: 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…

Would love, love for Firebase to have a service similar to AWS Lambda to manipulate and transform data without having to maintain persistent servers.

You can use any Google Cloud product with Firebase so you have access to Cloud Functions. https://cloud.google.com/functions/

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#127

Post by velohx »

inlined wrote: post #86
velohx wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a feature I would also really like. I also use an intermediate server (ipify.org) to get the IP address. The only reason I need the IP address is to throttle users. If adjustable throttling was baked into the platform and not require me to write logic to handle it, that would be sweet too.

Is there anything you'd like to use the IP address for beyond throttling?

Not in my use cases.

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#128

Post by zeeshanm »

guelo wrote: post #93
aeosynth wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Horizon[0] was announced yesterday; it's basically an open-source Firebase built on RethinkDB. [0]: https://github.com/rethinkdb/horizon

Horizon is only the "realtime db" portion of Firebase and it's only for Javascript, not Android or iOS. The mobile app realtime network connection tech is especially tricky to get right without draining a user's battery by doing things like constantly polling the backend. I have not seen anything from RethinkDB along those lines.

Horizon uses push architecture by default so there is no need to pool.

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#129

Post by [deleted] »

guelo wrote: post #93
aeosynth wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Horizon[0] was announced yesterday; it's basically an open-source Firebase built on RethinkDB. [0]: https://github.com/rethinkdb/horizon

Horizon is only the "realtime db" portion of Firebase and it's only for Javascript, not Android or iOS. The mobile app realtime network connection tech is especially tricky to get right without draining a user's battery by doing things like constantly polling the backend. I have not seen anything from RethinkDB along those lines.

[deleted]

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#130

Post by subpixel »

fahrradflucht wrote: post #112

I have build apps with firebase in the past and the feature I missed the most was performing scheduled tasks on the database. Now we are getting this BIG app platform update and this feature is still not in there. AWS Lambda with Scheduled Events for a long time to come :sad-panda:

Do Google Cloud Functions (referenced above) not fit that bill? https://cloud.google.com/functions/

I'm also keen to use Firebase without having to run a separate server to handle logic for payments, email alerts on search terms, etc.

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