--- title: Firebase slug: firebase url: "https://toolweight.com/options/firebase" homepage: "https://firebase.google.com" categories: convex-alternatives last_verified: 2026-07-20 license: CC-BY-4.0 --- # Firebase > Google's app platform: Firestore documents, auth, functions, deep mobile SDKs. Firebase is the original realtime backend and still the most operationally proven. Firestore is a document store with live listeners and genuine offline persistence, wrapped in the best mobile SDKs on this list. Access control is a proprietary rules language evaluated per document. Nothing is self-hostable, there is no SQL, and the managed export format is readable only by Firestore's own importer. ## Identity | | | | --- | --- | | Name | Firebase | | Company | Google | | One-liner | Google's app platform: Firestore documents, auth, functions, deep mobile SDKs. | | Site | https://firebase.google.com | | Docs | https://firebase.google.com/docs | | Founded | 2011 | | Open source | No | | Licence | Proprietary | | Brand | https://toolweight.com/vendors/Firebase | | Compared in | 1 | ## Where it is compared ### [Convex alternatives](https://toolweight.com/compare/convex-alternatives) Ranked **#10 of 11** on default weights. | Field | Value | Confidence | Verified | Source | Note | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Reactivity | push | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-20 | https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore/query-data/listen | Per-query snapshot listeners with delta updates, the original, and still very good. | | TS inference | ○ | Inferred | - | - | Firestore is schemaless; converters are hand-written. | | Transactions | occ | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-20 | https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore/manage-data/transactions | Client SDKs use optimistic concurrency with retries; server SDKs take pessimistic locks. Bounded to 500 writes per transaction. | | Local-first sync | ◐ | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-20 | https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore/manage-data/enable-offline | Real offline persistence with local query evaluation and a write queue; conflict resolution is last-write-wins. | | Optimistic writes | ● | Inferred | - | - | Local writes hit listeners immediately, before the server acknowledges. | | Cron & scheduling | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-20 | https://firebase.google.com/docs/functions/schedule-functions | - | | File storage | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-20 | https://firebase.google.com/docs/storage | - | | Vector search | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-20 | https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore/vector-search | - | | Full-text search | ○ | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-20 | https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore/solutions/search | The documented answer is to attach Algolia or Elastic. | | Auth | built-in | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-20 | https://firebase.google.com/docs/auth | - | | Hard limits | 1 MiB per document; about one sustained write per second per document; 500 operations per transaction; no joins. | Inferred | - | - | The write-per-document ceiling is the one that reshapes real schemas. | | Cold start | 2 s | Community-reported | - | - | Node Cloud Functions cold start, commonly 1-3s. Minimum instances remove it for a fee. | | Function timeout | 60 min | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-20 | https://firebase.google.com/docs/functions/quotas | 60 minutes for 2nd-gen HTTP functions; event-driven functions cap at 9 minutes. | | Exit cost | 5 | Inferred | - | - | Proprietary query API, proprietary runtime, a proprietary rules language, no self-host, and a managed export format only Firestore's importer reads. Getting the data out is its own project before the rewrite starts. | | Self-hostable | ○ | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-20 | https://firebase.google.com/docs | The local emulator suite is for development only. | | Bulk export | ◐ | Inferred | - | - | Managed export writes a format only Firestore reads. An open dump means paginating collections through the Admin SDK yourself. | | Raw SQL | ○ | Inferred | - | - | - | | Schema changes | schemaless | Inferred | - | - | No schema to migrate; shape changes are handled in application code and backfill scripts. | | MCP server | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-20 | https://firebase.google.com/docs/cli/mcp-server | - | | Agent fit | 2 | Inferred | - | - | Untyped documents, console-configured indexes and a string rules DSL give an agent very little to check itself against. | | Pricing model | usage only (Blaze pay-as-you-go) | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-20 | https://firebase.google.com/pricing | - | | Entry price | $0 /mo | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-20 | https://firebase.google.com/pricing | No base fee on Blaze; you pay per read, write, delete, GB stored and GB out. | | Egress metered | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-20 | https://firebase.google.com/pricing | - | | GitHub stars | - | Unknown | - | - | Closed product; the JS SDK repository is not a meaningful proxy. | | Backing | big-tech | Inferred | - | - | - | | Positioning | Google's platform for building and running app backends. | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-20 | https://firebase.google.com | - | **Verdict.** Still the best offline story and the best mobile SDKs, and still the worst exit on this page by a distance. Reasonable for consumer apps that will never migrate; a liability for anything you expect to restructure later. ## Alternatives - [Appwrite](https://toolweight.com/options/appwrite), Open-source backend platform: databases, auth, storage, functions, self-hostable. - [Convex](https://toolweight.com/options/convex), Reactive TypeScript backend: database, functions and live queries in one project. - [ElectricSQL](https://toolweight.com/options/electricsql), Postgres read-path sync: stream subsets of your own database to clients over HTTP. - [InstantDB](https://toolweight.com/options/instantdb), Client-side reactive database with a relational graph model and instant sync. - [Neon + Drizzle](https://toolweight.com/options/neon-drizzle), The DIY baseline: serverless Postgres, a typed SQL query builder, nothing else. - [Nhost](https://toolweight.com/options/nhost), Postgres plus Hasura GraphQL, auth, storage and serverless functions. - [PocketBase](https://toolweight.com/options/pocketbase), One Go binary: SQLite database, auth, file storage, realtime and an admin UI. - [Zero](https://toolweight.com/options/rocicorp-zero), Sync engine that puts a queryable client cache in front of your own Postgres. - [Supabase](https://toolweight.com/options/supabase), Managed Postgres with auth, storage, realtime and edge functions around it. - [Triplit](https://toolweight.com/options/triplit), Full-stack database that syncs: local cache, server, relational queries, offline. ## Licence and attribution Data from toolweight (https://toolweight.com), licensed CC-BY-4.0. - Licence: [CC-BY-4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) - Canonical HTML: https://toolweight.com/options/firebase - Machine-readable: https://toolweight.com/options/firebase.md · https://toolweight.com/api/v1 · https://toolweight.com/mcp - toolweight takes no affiliate revenue and sells no placements. Corrections: https://toolweight.com/suggest