Firebase Alternatives

Firebase Alternatives – Top 10 Competitors | back4app blog 1/19/18, 4(13 PM
Back4App Blog (https://blog.back4app.com/)

Parse Server Made Simple (https://blog.back4app.com/)
SIGN UP (HTTPS://WWW.BACK4APP.COM/#SIGNUP)
Firebase Alternatives – Top 10 Competitors

LEARN (HTTPS://BLOG.BACK4APP.COM/CATEGORY/LEARN/)
It’s no secret that every developer wants to develop great apps, and if you’re one of them, we
are here to help you discover some of the best alternatives to Firebase to help take your mo-
bile app a notch higher.
Firebase continues to innovate and dominate the backend as a service (BaaS) market. It’s
grown so much that it has become a key component of Google’s mobile strategy. In the past,
I’ve been an enthusiastic Firebase user, but my concerns about its complexity and cost have
led me to explore other cloud alternatives. While it offers an increasingly sophisticated array
of services for many kinds of development requirements, it’s not always the simplest, fastest,
or most affordable option. The article Reasons Not to Use Firebase also made me more
aware of the risks of using Firebase.
In addition to some first-tier competitors such as Parse (http://parseplatform.org/), there’s an

increasingly growing list of cloud providers that offer useful services in ways that can benefit
small developers with ease of use and affordability.
https://blog.back4app.com/2018/01/12/firebase-alternatives/ Page 1 of 12
In this tutorial, I’ll outline some of the competitors to Firebase; some that are less established
but still useful to developers. The tutorial will cover the following competitors:
1. Parse – Open Source Backend Platform;

2. Back4app – Parse Hosting Platform;
3. Kinvey – Mobile Backend as a Service (mBaaS) for the Enterprise;
4. Backendless – Mobile Backend and API Services Platform;
5. Kuzzle – Backend for web, hybrid, or native mobile apps and IoT projects;
6. Pubnub – Real-time APIs and Global Messaging;
7. Kumulos – App Performance Management;
8. Game Sparks – Game Backend Platform;
9. Hoodie – Generic backend with a client API for Offline First applications;
10. Deployd – Simple core library, with a modular API for your application.
Parse – Why Parse Platform is still a better

option?
Parse is a mobile and web application development platform acquired by Facebook in 2013.
The project was open sourced in 2016 and is supported by a robust developer ecosystem.
Parse is a great choice because it’s Open Source, has a strong developer community to sup-
port the technology and comes with no vendor lock-in. The downsides are the lack of struc-
tured support through the developer community and the requirement of downloading the
project and setting up server infrastructure.
Developers all around the world are arguing that Firebase is the best and most affordable op-
tion to build and scale mobile apps. In this article, I will provide a list of compelling argu-
ments detailing why Parse is a much better alternative to Firebase for mobile app
development.
Don’t believe me? Keep reading, and you will see what I’m talking about! Below I’ve covered
topics encompassing vendor lock-in, pricing, hosting options, data storage, and features.
1. Vendor Lock-in
Firebase is a Google-backed closed source platform that comes with a gazillion out-of-the-
box features that allow developers to get their MVP out quick and effortlessly, but one of its
biggest concerns is vendor lock-in. This is the major downside of Firebase! Are you really go-
ing to invest time and money developing your app and have no control over the source
code? Not having access to your source code may reduce the chances of getting your startup
funded by any serious VC or angel investor, which may jeopardize scaling chances of your
app.
Parse platform was open sourced by Facebook in 2016, and the framework can be used fol-
lowing the terms of the BSD License (https://github.com/parse-community/parse-
server/blob/master/LICENSE). This license imposes minimal restrictions on the use of the
software and provides much more flexibility.
Firebase Closed Source Vendor Lock-In
Parse Open Source No Lock-In
2. Pricing
Always remember, the price can scale very rapidly using Firebase! The $25.00 (Flame Plan)
works
(https://www.back4app.com/) well only for small apps, but as soon as your app starts scaling you need to move to the
Blaze plan and will
Product not have fixed pricing anymore. Blaze is a ‘pay as youPricing
(https://www.back4app.com/product/parse-server) go’ plan(https://www.back4app.com/pricing)
in which
you’ll not be able to fix the maximum amount that you will spend every month. In addition to
that, youCommunity (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/back4app) Blog (https://blog.back4app.com/)
may get undesired surprises by the end of the billing cycle.
Docs (https://www.back4app.com/docs/pages/back4app/welcome) FAQ (https://www.back4app.com/faq)
Parse, on the contrary, provides you with much more flexibility and pricing options. You can
start hosting your application for around $5/month with players like Back4app
Sign In to
(https://www.back4app.com/) or Digital Ocean and scale your app according (https://www.back4app.com/#signin)
your needs.
3. Hosting Options
Firebase offers only one type of hosting setup. That is, you must use its cloud infrastructure
and share resources with other applications. This can be quite inconvenient for more complex
applications that usually demand customized servers settings to optimize performance.
Parse, on the other hand, is much more flexible in terms of hosting. You have basically two
sets of options for Parse hosting. Either you go for self-hosting solutions and deploy your
Parse project on infrastructure players like Digital Ocean or AWS. Or you can use Parse host-
ing services like Back4app. Another benefit from Parse is the possibility to run your applica-
tion on dedicated instances and avoid noisy neighbors jeopardizing your app performance.
Dedicated
Cloud Hosting Self-Hosting

Servers
Firebase X – –
Parse – X X
4. Data Storage
As per item 1.5 of Firebase’s Terms of Service, the data is stored on US datacenters.
1.5: Data Storage. Unless otherwise provided for by the Paid Services, Customer Data will be
stored in the United States (“Hosting Data Location”), except that the Hosting Data Location
may not apply to Customer Data copied by Customer or a Customer’s End User to another
location or used with other Google products and services.
Providing data storage in the US can be an issue for European customers because of General
Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) issued by European Parliament. That means if you store
personally identifiable information of European members on your app or website site on
servers based in the United States, you may not fully fulfill European requirements.
Parse data can be stored in any location of the world because of its flexible hosting options.
USA Europe Asia Americas Oceania Africa
Firebase X – – – – –
Parse X X X X X X
Back4App
Back4app is the world’s most popular Parse hosting platform. It provides a fully managed
backend featuring automated provisioning and scaling of Parse Server applications, backup
and recovery, 24/7 monitoring and alerting, web-based management tools and support, and
more. The pros of Back4app are pretty much the same as Parse along, and it comes with
many other additional features like a user-friendly dashboard, the ability to scale app and
support. The downside of this platform is the lack of good documentation and non-standard-
ized UI inside its docs’ page.
Did you like this post? Sign Up Back4App (https://www.back4app.com/) for FREE.
Kinvey
Kinvey is a fully-integrated, secure, and HIPAA compliant serverless app development plat-
form that helps enterprises and developers launch successful & engaging mobile apps and
entire digital businesses. It gives you the freedom to use the frontend SDK of your choice
while still providing virtually any backend feature you might need. Some of its key features in-
clude standards-based open architecture, no cloud lock-in, great docs and open source
SDKs, 86 percent faster release cycles, complete set of tools to deliver high quality, immersive
experiences, and more. Its major downside is its high costs.
Backendless
Backendless is a highly scalable mobile Backend-as-a-Service (mBaaS) platform providing
gazillion of features, including user authentication, live audio and video streaming, message
filtering, push notifications, auto-scalability, data persistence, file storage, geo-location,
cloud-code, analytics, and custom business logic. It has it all what you need to build awe-
some mobile apps without worrying about servers. There are several shortcomings of this
platform, which include conditional message delivery, limited free version, limited resources
of the server (which may affect the performance), and partially limited possibilities of develop-
ment, which makes it difficult to perform the tasks that require complex server logic.
Kuzzle
Kuzzle is a ready-to-use, on-premises backend platform designed to power and unify innova-
tive applications for web, mobile, and IoT. A unique proposition based on Time-to-market
(TOM) reduction of digital products by 40 percent and increase Return on investment (ROI)
on innovation cycles. The Kuzzle backend is an open source solution that includes a scalable
server, a multi-protocol API, an administration console and a set of plugin engines that pro-
vide advanced functionalities, including real-time pub/sub, blazing fast search, and geospa-
tial queries.
Top reasons why developers prefer using Kuzzle over other mobile backends is its persistent
storage, Real-time through filters, multiprotocol, etc. Its disadvantage is that it has a No-host-
ed version, which requires installing it to a remote machine in order to use it, and the fact that
it is a very young project (it is in alpha version and is approaching beta).
Pubnub
Pubnub is a secure global Data Stream Network (DSN) and easy-to-use API that allows devel-
opers to connect, scale, and manage real-time applications and IoT devices. Beyond its core
services including Publish/Subscribe, Pubnub Functions, and ChatEngine, Pubnub offers a
collection of “building-block” services for any type of real-time application, which includes
Offline Mobile Push, Real-time Analytics, Storage/Playback, AES Encryption, Online Presence
Detection, access Management, Multiplexing, and more. While Pubnub has its own set of
merits, such as easy-to-understand pricing model, a separate API for managing accounts,
flexible to integrate to custom applications, and the availability of client API in a great num-
ber of technologies and languages, it has some pitfalls as well. This includes the supported
message payload size, which is 1.8 kb by default. Apart from that, it doesn’t have an exclusive
isolation level.
Kumulos
Kumulos is a secure, easy-to-use, and powerful mobile app performance management plat-
form trusted by thousands of app developers across the globe. It lets you easily link your
client-side mobile app to its backend cloud-based storage, setting you free from the hassle
of managing your own backend infrastructure. One of its noticeable features is granular per-
missions, which is a boon for mobile app development companies. However, its downside is
its weak documentation.
Game Sparks
Game Sparks is a cloud-based backend development platform for gaming developers, which
helps them build their server-side components without ever having to set up and run a server.
What makes this platform so impressive is the fact that it’s completely open, scalable, and
customizable, which makes it an ideal framework on which you can build your own backend
capability and integrate with existing components. Additionally, its rich set of social and mes-
saging features helps in increasing retention and engagement across your player base. So far,
we haven’t found any cons of this platform on the internet.
Hoodie
Hoodie is a simple, self-hosted, and Offline JavaScript backend which utilizes a no-backend
technology that makes the lives of developers unbelievably easy and the process of web app
development easy, speedy, and accessible. Some of its key features include a dream-code
driven API which makes coding easy to grasp and understand, offline support which solves
the major problem of connectivity dependence, no backend programming, Node.js integra-
tion, and more. And just like any other platform, it does have some cons as well, which in-
clude a very small developer community compared to other mobile backends and no access
to Google docs when there’s no internet access.
Deployd
Deployd is an open source API design and deployment platform that empowers developers
to hastily design, customize, and deploy an API for their application. It consists of a simple
core library, with a modular API for extending your application. Deployd’s local-dev-friendly
design makes it easy for you to quickly build and test APIs while you develop your user inter-
face. Some of its highlighting features include secure access to database APIs directly from
untrusted clients, user and session management, all APIs exposed over REST / HTTP, can be
hosted by modern cloud platforms, support extension through node modules and npm, etc.
Its major downside is that it only supports MongoDB.
Vendors Overview
Open
Vendor Lock-In Support Documentation Remarks
Source
Firebase No Yes Yes Yes
Parse Yes No No Yes
Back4app Yes No Yes Yes
Kinvey No Yes Yes Yes Focus on the enterprise
Back-
No Yes Yes Yes
endless
Kuzzle Yes No Yes Yes
Pubnub No Yes Yes Yes
Kumulos No Yes Yes Yes
Game Focus on game

No Yes Yes Yes
Sparks development
Hoodie Yes No Yes Yes
Deployd Yes No No Yes
Pricing
Paid Tier
Vendor Free Tier Remarks

Starts
Spark Plan for Free
Flame Plan for $25.00/mo

Firebase Yes $25.00
Blaze Plan
(Pay as you go)
Open Source project. Downloading

Parse Yes N/A is required and the app has to be
hosted in a cloud provider.
Free Plan
Starter Plan for $4.99/mo
Basic Plan for $14.99/mo
Back4app Yes $4.99 Intermediate Plan for $34.99/mo
Standard Plan for $49.99/mo
Advanced Plan for $99.99/mo
Dedicated Servers for $99.99/mo
Free
Kinvey Yes $200 Startup for $200/mo
Business for $2,000/mo
Enterprise
Free Plan
Developer for $7.99/mo
Cloud 9 for $25.00/mo

Backendless Yes $7.99
Cloud 99 for $99.00/mo
Backendless Pro – Pricing not avail-

able on website
Free
Starter for $2,000/mo

Kuzzle Yes $2,000/mo
Business for $5,000/mo
Enterprise (Custom pricing)
Free
$49 for 500 devices
Pubnub Yes $49/mo $149 for 1500 devices
$399 for 5000 devices
$799 for 2000 devices
Kumulos No $50/mo 30 days free trial
Game Sparks Yes N/A Not available on website
Hoodie Yes N/A Download only
Deployd Yes N/A Download only
Deployment
Cloud
On-Premises
Vendor Dedicated Servers
Services
Self-Hosting
Firebase Yes No No
Parse No No Yes
Back4app Yes Yes Yes
Kinvey Yes Yes Yes
Backendless Yes Yes Yes
Kuzzle Yes Yes Yes
Pubnub Yes No No
Kumulos Yes No No
Game Sparks Yes Yes Yes
Hoodie No Yes Yes
Deployd No Yes Yes
Features
Vendor Core Features
Realtime User Cloud Data Push AdWords Remote

Firebase Database Authentica- Messagin Storage Notifications & Config
tion g AdMob
Role-
Easier In- Pointer
Push based ac- Data Easy
Parse app Analytics Permis-
Notifications cess security deployment
purchases sion
control
Scheduling,
Class Lev-
Facebook and seg- Parse
Back4ap Automatic el Permis- Push
and Twitter menting Global Config Server
p E-mails sions Config
Integration Push Dashboard
(CLPs)
Notifications
Mi-
Data Stor- User Push App croser-
Cloud
Kinvey age & Authentica- Notif- Encryptio Data Security vices
Caching
Modeling tion ications n Man-
agement
Query-
Con- User Your own
Backendles Social login Relational based Send Push
straints & Authentica- cloud
s for your app data storage data Notifications
Validators tion code
search
Real-time Data Offline

Authentica- Real-time Advanced
Kuzzle Notifications Geofencin man- Managemen
tion data sync search
g agement t
Access
IoT Device Real-time Storage & Stream Push
Pubnub Analytics Manage-
Control updates Playback Controller Notifications
ment
Automatic Supports iOS,

Crash Re- App Store
Push reporting Agency OSX, PHP, as Client App
Kumulos porting & Optimiza-
Notifications & Console well as Portal
Diagnostics tion
analytics Android
Meta-game Live game

Game Social & Infrastructure Match-
& operation Core PaaS Integrations
Sparks Multiplayer & operations making
economies s
Amazing
and dedi- A backend Runs locally Non-coding
No backend Dream-code Offline
Hoodie cated for all your and can be contributor
technology driven API support
communit apps hosted s
y
Intuitive
APIs built of
web- Easy Flexibility A library
No plug-and- JavaScript
Deployd based deploy- through to end all
boilerplate play throughout
dashboar ment modularity libraries
resources
d
Conclusion
These were ten of the best alternatives to Firebase, which complement each other in terms of
user engagement, pricing, hosting, deployment, and features. Being a hardcore developer,
you might have made your choice already, but we hope that this list will still be useful for
those who are yet to decide or plan on changing the infrastructure they are currently using.
Don’t let your backend become a bottleneck for your app. Decide wisely and choose a tech-
nology that you’re comfortable working with to ensure scalability, flexibility, ease of use for
development, and most importantly, cost-efficiency.
My personal advice to you would be to go with Back4App (just like what I did). They were the
best bet for what I was looking for, and I’d suggest you do the same without any second
thoughts. It is a really good option for a generic app backend.
If you’re ready to build your next app on Back4App or would like to give it a try, then sign up
here for free!
! (https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https://blog.back4app.com/2018/01/12/firebase-alternatives/)
" (https://twitter.com/home?status=Check%20out%20this%20article:%20Firebase%20Alternatives%20–
%20Top%2010%20Competitors%20-%20https://blog.back4app.com/2018/01/12/firebase-alternatives/) #
(https://plus.google.com/share?url=https://blog.back4app.com/2018/01/12/firebase-alternatives/)
George Batschinski
I’m a entrepreneur, leader and strategist with experience in software and aviation industries. I’m expert to develop new
businesses and start ups.
Leave a reply COMMENT
Logged in as George (https://blog.back4app.com/wp-admin/profile.php). Log out?
(https://blog.back4app.com/wp-login.php?
action=logout&redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.back4app.com%2F2018%2F01%2F12%2Ffirebase-
alternatives%2F&_wpnonce=94e3b66ba3)
QUICKLINKS RECENT POSTS TAGS SECTIONS
Product Firebase Alternatives – Top 10 ABOUT BACK4APP Announcements

(https://www.back4app.com/product/parse- Competitors (HTTPS://BLOG.BACK4APP.COM/TAG/ABOUT- (https://blog.back4app.com/category/announce
server) (https://blog.back4app.com/2018/01/12/firebase-BACK4APP/) back4app/)
alternatives/)
API
Pricing Events
(HTTPS://BLOG.BACK4APP.COM/TAG/API/)
(https://www.back4app.com/pricing) Parse Server and Android : A perfect (https://blog.back4app.com/category/events-
solution for your app Backend AWS back4app/)
Community (https://blog.back4app.com/2018/01/03/parse- (HTTPS://BLOG.BACK4APP.COM/TAG/AWS/)
server-android/)
(https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/back4app) Learn
BAAS
(https://blog.back4app.com/category/learn/)
Blog (https://blog.back4app.com/) A Serverless Database Platform
(https://blog.back4app.com/2017/12/28/serverless-
Docs database/)
(https://www.back4app.com/docs/pages/back4app/welcome)
The secret of Parse and Facebook
FAQ (https://www.back4app.com/faq) (https://blog.back4app.com/2017/12/28/parse-
$
facebook/)
(https://www.linkedin.com/company/back4app-
servicos-
Android App for Raspberry "
Pi % digitais- ! &
(https://blog.back4app.com/2017/12/16/android-
(https://twitter.com/back4app)
(https://github.com/back4app)
ltda) (https://www.facebook.com/back4app/)
(https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUE3mf1bb2ca21Q4YQn_xyQ)
app-for-raspberry-pi/)
Copyright © 2017. Back4App

Firebase Alternatives

Transféré par

Informations du document

Copyright

Formats disponibles

Partager ce document

Partager ou intégrer le document

Options de partage

Avez-vous trouvé ce document utile ?

Ce contenu est-il inapproprié ?

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

Firebase Alternatives

Transféré par

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

Firebase Alternatives – Top 10 Competitors | back4app blog 1/19/18, 4(13 PM

Back4App Blog (https://blog.back4app.com/)

Firebase Alternatives – Top 10 Competitors

In addition to some first-tier competitors such as Parse (http://parseplatform.org/), there’s an

1. Parse – Open Source Backend Platform;

Parse – Why Parse Platform is still a better

Firebase Closed Source Vendor Lock-In

Parse Open Source No Lock-In

Cloud Hosting Self-Hosting

USA Europe Asia Americas Oceania Africa

Firebase No Yes Yes Yes

Parse Yes No No Yes

Back4app Yes No Yes Yes

Kinvey No Yes Yes Yes Focus on the enterprise

Kuzzle Yes No Yes Yes

Pubnub No Yes Yes Yes

Kumulos No Yes Yes Yes

Game Focus on game

Hoodie Yes No Yes Yes

Deployd Yes No No Yes

Vendor Free Tier Remarks

Spark Plan for Free

Flame Plan for $25.00/mo

(Pay as you go)

Open Source project. Downloading

Starter Plan for $4.99/mo

Basic Plan for $14.99/mo

Back4app Yes $4.99 Intermediate Plan for $34.99/mo

Standard Plan for $49.99/mo

Advanced Plan for $99.99/mo

Dedicated Servers for $99.99/mo

Kinvey Yes $200 Startup for $200/mo

Business for $2,000/mo

Developer for $7.99/mo

Cloud 9 for $25.00/mo

Cloud 99 for $99.00/mo

Backendless Pro – Pricing not avail-

Starter for $2,000/mo

Enterprise (Custom pricing)

$49 for 500 devices

Pubnub Yes $49/mo $149 for 1500 devices

$399 for 5000 devices

$799 for 2000 devices

Kumulos No $50/mo 30 days free trial

Game Sparks Yes N/A Not available on website

Hoodie Yes N/A Download only

Deployd Yes N/A Download only

Back4app Yes Yes Yes

Kinvey Yes Yes Yes

Backendless Yes Yes Yes

Kuzzle Yes Yes Yes

Game Sparks Yes Yes Yes

Hoodie No Yes Yes

Deployd No Yes Yes

Vendor Core Features

Realtime User Cloud Data Push AdWords Remote

Real-time Data Oﬄine

Automatic Supports iOS,

Meta-game Live game

Leave a reply COMMENT

Logged in as George (https://blog.back4app.com/wp-admin/profile.php). Log out?

QUICKLINKS RECENT POSTS TAGS SECTIONS

Product Firebase Alternatives – Top 10 ABOUT BACK4APP Announcements

Copyright © 2017. Back4App