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I am ecstatic that someone is finally taking on Firebase. As a Firebase user, I find it invaluable. Their free plan and limits are very generous. The fact they

I am ecstatic that someone is finally taking on Firebase. As a Firebase user, I find it invaluable. Their free plan and limits are very generous. The fact they offer not only a database, but authentication, hosting and perhaps one of their biggest features besides authentication: Firebase Functions. I have API's in deployment that are solely running using Firebase Functions and using Firestore as the database. The CLI is also another huge Firebase feature. Following this intently, because Firebase has no true competitor, let alone an open source one. Nice work so far.

punnerud 6y ago
Firebase smell the Google Maps model with its “free” for a long time plan, before turning up the price when most of the market is used to the product and are to deeply locked to the API.
- mav3rick 6y ago
  Why shouldn't they charge for a great product ? When Google charges it's a problem when they don't charge it's a problem.
  - codegladiator 6y ago
    > Why shouldn't they charge for a great product ? They should charge from the beginning. > When Google charges it's a problem Where is that ? It's a problem when it's abrupt.
    - tifadg1 6y ago
      It's easy taking the high road when you're not the one actually doing something. As a business, if you're getting something for free, assume someone else is subsidising you, as there's no such thing as free lunch.
      - codegladiator 6y ago
        Not sure what is the point you are trying to make. What high road did I take ? > if you're getting something for free, assume someone else is subsidising you, as there's no such thing as free lunch And how does this matter to the commend that OP made which I was replying to ?
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    No, when they tout the product as free or cheap, and then only later up the pricing by 10x, once people have built their business around the older pricing model. That's a problem.
    - mav3rick 6y ago
      If you don't want to pay then roll your own solution or use this startup
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - bmikaili 6y ago
      God forbid someone wants to get money for their product
      - sauwan 6y ago
        No one's saying they shouldn't. If the current business model isn't sustainable, then it's a predatory lock-in scheme to monopolize the market and then take advantage of the people who've become dependant on your product.
        Tostino 6y ago
        Couldn't agree more. If major price changes are required to make the product work well after customers have been "enticed" in with a reasonable cost, it is underhanded to say the least.
        sparkie 6y ago
        It's more than just "entice". Google has crippled apps which don't use FCM since Oreo by limiting their ability to run alternatives which have a blocking socket waiting for new information. Only choice is to use FCM or lose essential functionality.
  - sparkie 6y ago
    The problem is they've forced people to use the product by hindering their ability to run background services without it. Since Oreo, background services are turned to idle unless they receive high priority push notifications from FCM.
    - mav3rick 6y ago
      And this is done to tackle the horrendous battery issues.
  - Chris2048 6y ago
    > when they don't charge it's a problem only if it means they'll kill the service, or "you're the product"-ize its users
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
  Just this year, Google/firebase has dropped their flat monthly fee plan which increased the spark plans limits. Just this week cloud functions have been removed from the free spark plan, which will break a lot of peoples apps. These decisions are alienating to me. I've been working on migrating my heroku mern stack app to firebase but now I'm having serious second thoughts. I was initially attracted by the free and flat fee plans. I won't ever sign up for a service that demands absolute liability without any way to put hard limits on expense. Without a way to put an absolute maximum limit on expenses, whether $10k or 0.01, I'll never upgrade my account on firebase. I've spent this week reviewing some alternatives and standing up everything myself on a vps is more attractive then losing sleep over the possibility of my crappy code bankrupting me on firebase.
  - pgt 6y ago
    Wow, did not know they dropped cloud functions from the free tier, but don't you get a free usage tier as long as you provide a credit card?
    - puf 6y ago
      firebaser here Both are indeed correct: you must now provide a credit card to use Cloud Functions, and you do get a free tier on the Blaze plan. In fact, the Blaze plan comes with a free tier that is bigger than the limit of the free plan was, but you can no longer use it without entering a credit card. This change came while adding support for newer node.js versions. Cloud Functions now uses Cloud Build to create its containers, and while Cloud Build does offer a free tier, you'll have to enter a credit card to use it.
blunte 6y ago
I've read too many stories of people and companies being temporarily (and possibly permanently) incorrectly flagged/banned from Google (by some algorithm). If your business depends on Google, you are taking serious risk. Even if you have a contact within Google who can champion your case, a loss of your Google services could end your business.
- tr33house 6y ago
  I wouldn't worry about this. Any examples?
  - draw_down 6y ago
    Why, so you can quarrel with each one and dissemble at every turn? Everyone knows what GP is talking about. If you don’t think it’s a risk, then enjoy!
  - ssijak 6y ago
    I got my old google account banned when I enabled adsense (and did absolutely nothing with it). They blocked me from random number of their services so that account became unusable. And I dis nothing wrong. And no way for appeal.
    - tr33house 6y ago
      idk what I was thinking with my comment above! I think it was misplaced. It's really sad that Google and other big corps do this to people. They destroy their livelihoods on a whim. We really have to think of a way to divest ourselves from them (GCloud, AWS, I;m looking at you too)
pier25 6y ago
I've been using Firebase since 2016 in production and after all these years I find the service quite lacking. Both databases are super limited and put all the burden of work to the client(s) for anything beyond very simple queries. The functions have some of the worst cold starts I've experienced. Until very recently the dev experience was terrible but Firebase local dev was released a couple of days ago so this should be solved. As for alternatives, AFAIK there is nothing that replicates the whole platform but there are better options for the individual parts. - FaunaDB instead of Firestore. - Vercel for edge static hosting + cloud functions. - Netlify for everything except the databases Etc.
- davidb_ 6y ago
  FWIW, the cold start issue (which was hitting me with regular 10-30+ second delays for even the simplest of functions) has recently been "fixed" (at least, I'm down to <1-2 second cold starts). The specific issue I was running into: https://github.com/googleapis/google-cloud-node/issues/2942 https://github.com/googleapis/google-cloud-node/issues/2942
  - pier25 6y ago
    Check this benchmark: https://serverless-benchmark.com/ https://serverless-benchmark.com/ It displays data from the last 3 days of tests. Google Cloud has a max peak of 60 seconds for cold starts. It's the second worst after Azure.
    - Havoc 6y ago
      Wow that is pretty bleak actually. 500ms+ in a world where edge cached serves at 5ms def means one needs to deploy these strategically only
    - tlarkworthy 6y ago
      Thats an amazing benchmark. Though you have to fiddle with the concurrency parameter to see that some of the slowness is caused by scaling.
jbirer 6y ago
I am not sure if I can get behind this. Company invests work and money into a product, makes it free for the community and smaller businesses to use only to have people turn around and copy it and break the "you use my product for free and give me some publicity" contract. Something is ticking me off morally on this.

punnerud 6y ago

Firebase smell the Google Maps model with its “free” for a long time plan, before turning up the price when most of the market is used to the product and are to deeply locked to the API.

mav3rick 6y ago
Why shouldn't they charge for a great product ? When Google charges it's a problem when they don't charge it's a problem.
- codegladiator 6y ago
  > Why shouldn't they charge for a great product ? They should charge from the beginning. > When Google charges it's a problem Where is that ? It's a problem when it's abrupt.
  - tifadg1 6y ago
    It's easy taking the high road when you're not the one actually doing something. As a business, if you're getting something for free, assume someone else is subsidising you, as there's no such thing as free lunch.
    - codegladiator 6y ago
      Not sure what is the point you are trying to make. What high road did I take ? > if you're getting something for free, assume someone else is subsidising you, as there's no such thing as free lunch And how does this matter to the commend that OP made which I was replying to ?
- nicoburns 6y ago
  No, when they tout the product as free or cheap, and then only later up the pricing by 10x, once people have built their business around the older pricing model. That's a problem.
  - mav3rick 6y ago
    If you don't want to pay then roll your own solution or use this startup
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - bmikaili 6y ago
    God forbid someone wants to get money for their product
    - sauwan 6y ago
      No one's saying they shouldn't. If the current business model isn't sustainable, then it's a predatory lock-in scheme to monopolize the market and then take advantage of the people who've become dependant on your product.
      - Tostino 6y ago
        Couldn't agree more. If major price changes are required to make the product work well after customers have been "enticed" in with a reasonable cost, it is underhanded to say the least.
        sparkie 6y ago
        It's more than just "entice". Google has crippled apps which don't use FCM since Oreo by limiting their ability to run alternatives which have a blocking socket waiting for new information. Only choice is to use FCM or lose essential functionality.
- sparkie 6y ago
  The problem is they've forced people to use the product by hindering their ability to run background services without it. Since Oreo, background services are turned to idle unless they receive high priority push notifications from FCM.
  - mav3rick 6y ago
    And this is done to tackle the horrendous battery issues.
- Chris2048 6y ago
  > when they don't charge it's a problem only if it means they'll kill the service, or "you're the product"-ize its users
Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
Just this year, Google/firebase has dropped their flat monthly fee plan which increased the spark plans limits. Just this week cloud functions have been removed from the free spark plan, which will break a lot of peoples apps. These decisions are alienating to me. I've been working on migrating my heroku mern stack app to firebase but now I'm having serious second thoughts. I was initially attracted by the free and flat fee plans. I won't ever sign up for a service that demands absolute liability without any way to put hard limits on expense. Without a way to put an absolute maximum limit on expenses, whether $10k or 0.01, I'll never upgrade my account on firebase. I've spent this week reviewing some alternatives and standing up everything myself on a vps is more attractive then losing sleep over the possibility of my crappy code bankrupting me on firebase.
- pgt 6y ago
  Wow, did not know they dropped cloud functions from the free tier, but don't you get a free usage tier as long as you provide a credit card?
  - puf 6y ago
    firebaser here Both are indeed correct: you must now provide a credit card to use Cloud Functions, and you do get a free tier on the Blaze plan. In fact, the Blaze plan comes with a free tier that is bigger than the limit of the free plan was, but you can no longer use it without entering a credit card. This change came while adding support for newer node.js versions. Cloud Functions now uses Cloud Build to create its containers, and while Cloud Build does offer a free tier, you'll have to enter a credit card to use it.

blunte 6y ago

I've read too many stories of people and companies being temporarily (and possibly permanently) incorrectly flagged/banned from Google (by some algorithm). If your business depends on Google, you are taking serious risk. Even if you have a contact within Google who can champion your case, a loss of your Google services could end your business.

tr33house 6y ago
I wouldn't worry about this. Any examples?
- draw_down 6y ago
  Why, so you can quarrel with each one and dissemble at every turn? Everyone knows what GP is talking about. If you don’t think it’s a risk, then enjoy!
- ssijak 6y ago
  I got my old google account banned when I enabled adsense (and did absolutely nothing with it). They blocked me from random number of their services so that account became unusable. And I dis nothing wrong. And no way for appeal.
  - tr33house 6y ago
    idk what I was thinking with my comment above! I think it was misplaced. It's really sad that Google and other big corps do this to people. They destroy their livelihoods on a whim. We really have to think of a way to divest ourselves from them (GCloud, AWS, I;m looking at you too)

pier25 6y ago

I've been using Firebase since 2016 in production and after all these years I find the service quite lacking. Both databases are super limited and put all the burden of work to the client(s) for anything beyond very simple queries. The functions have some of the worst cold starts I've experienced. Until very recently the dev experience was terrible but Firebase local dev was released a couple of days ago so this should be solved. As for alternatives, AFAIK there is nothing that replicates the whole platform but there are better options for the individual parts. - FaunaDB instead of Firestore. - Vercel for edge static hosting + cloud functions. - Netlify for everything except the databases Etc.

davidb_ 6y ago
FWIW, the cold start issue (which was hitting me with regular 10-30+ second delays for even the simplest of functions) has recently been "fixed" (at least, I'm down to <1-2 second cold starts). The specific issue I was running into: https://github.com/googleapis/google-cloud-node/issues/2942 https://github.com/googleapis/google-cloud-node/issues/2942
- pier25 6y ago
  Check this benchmark: https://serverless-benchmark.com/ https://serverless-benchmark.com/ It displays data from the last 3 days of tests. Google Cloud has a max peak of 60 seconds for cold starts. It's the second worst after Azure.
  - Havoc 6y ago
    Wow that is pretty bleak actually. 500ms+ in a world where edge cached serves at 5ms def means one needs to deploy these strategically only
  - tlarkworthy 6y ago
    Thats an amazing benchmark. Though you have to fiddle with the concurrency parameter to see that some of the slowness is caused by scaling.

jbirer 6y ago

I am not sure if I can get behind this. Company invests work and money into a product, makes it free for the community and smaller businesses to use only to have people turn around and copy it and break the "you use my product for free and give me some publicity" contract. Something is ticking me off morally on this.