Seconding Matt's suggestion of Meteor. I haven't played with it very much since it first came out, but even at its very earliest versions (from which it has pr

Seconding Matt's suggestion of Meteor. I haven't played with it very much since it first came out, but even at its very earliest versions (from which it has progressed amazingly) I would have suggested it as a perfect fit. It doesn't "bypass the database" like the GP asked for, but then neither does Firebase really, as it just moves it to the cloud.