When shipping this month matters more than owning the schema
For apps that need sign-in, sync and push before they need a schema. It gets a real product in front of real users quickly, and we are honest with you about what that costs later.
Where Firebase earns its place.
Sign-in on day one
Email, phone and the social providers, without building an auth service first.
Sync that just works
Offline changes reconcile when the device comes back, which is most of what a mobile app needs.
Push without a server
Notifications and scheduled functions with no machine to keep alive.
Client SDKs that are actually good
iOS, Android and web, all first class, all maintained.
Why this, and when not.
Why we choose it
For a first release with a small team it is the shortest honest route from idea to something installed on a phone.
When we would not
Reporting across relationships, or a cost curve you need to predict at scale. Both get harder here than in Postgres, and moving later is real work.
Services built on Firebase.
Shipping an app?
A 45-minute technical call with the engineer who would lead the build. You leave with a scope sketch either way.