Android is a Linux based operating system it is designed primarily for touch screen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. Android also provides many kinds of storage for applications to store their data, Firebase is one such real-time storage that can be used for android and web development platform.

A Brief History of Firebase

Back in 2011, before Firebase was Firebase, it was a startup called Envolve. As Envolve, it provided developers with an API that enabled the integration of online chat functionality into their website.

What’s interesting is that people used Envolve to pass application data that was more than just chat messages. Developers were using Envolve to sync application data such as a game state in real time across their users.

This led the founders of Envolve, James Tamplin and Andrew Lee, to separate the chat system and the real-time architecture. On April 2012, Firebase was created as a separate company that provided Backend-as-a-Service with real-time functionality.

After it was acquired by Google in 2014, Firebase rapidly evolved into the multi-functional behemoth of a mobile and web platform that it is today.

The Services of Firebase include two groups

1. Develop & test your app

• Real-time database – Firebase supports JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)data and all users connected to it receive live updates after every change. Realtime syncing makes it easy for your users to access their data from any device: web or mobile, and it helps your users collaborate with one another.
• Authentication – We can use anonymous, password or different social authentications. Firebase Authentication aims to make building secure authentication systems easier, while improving the sign-in and onboarding experience for end users. It provides an end-to-end identity solution, supporting email and password accounts, phone auth, and Google, Twitter, Facebook, and GitHub login, and more.
• Hosting-The applications can be deployed over a secured connection to Firebase servers. With Firebase Hosting, you can deploy a single-page web app, a mobile app landing page, or a progressive web app without all the hassle.

2. Grow & Engage your audience

• Google Analytics-Google Analytics is a free app measurement solution that provides insight on app usage and user engagement.
• Firebase Invites-Firebase Invites are an out-of-the-box solution for app referrals and sharing via email or SMS. To customize the invitation user experience, or to generate links programmatically.
• Firebase Cloud Messaging-Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) is a cross-platform messaging solution that lets you reliably deliver messages at no cost.

The advantages of Firebase include

• Real-time Database Helps to Store and Synchronize Data
• Firebase has Become Smarter with Google Analytics
• Firebase Offers Facility of Crash Reporting to Fix Bugs Quickly
• Fast and Secure Web Hosting
• Firebase Authentication
• Firebase Allows the Content Storage with Ease
• Developers have the Accessibility of Machine Learning
• Send Notifications and Messages to Targeted Audiences
• Send the App Recommendation through Dynamic Links
• Generate More Traffic to your App with App Indexing
• The Facility of In-App Advertising

Firebase (and mostly all NoSQL databases) on the other hand doesn’t have this kind of restrictions. The Firebase database is just a big JSON object where you can store whatever you want inside. Unlike SQL, there’s no schema for the database, no tables, no columns, it’s just a combination of key/value pairs.

The Firebase also has many free products: Notifications, Crash Reporting, Remote Config, Dynamic Links, and App Indexing. You can use an unlimited amount of these in all plans, including our free Spark Plan.

Due to a change in how they report data usage, our monthly costs for Firebase, a SaaS provided by Google, has increased from $25 a month to what is now moving towards the $2,000 mark with no changes to our actual data use.

The limitations of Firebase include

• Limited to 50 Connections and 100mb of Storage.
• Not widely used or battle tested for Enterprises.
• Very limited querying and indexing.

The Firebase is very powerful and easy to use. This certainly makes the life of a developer less painful and he can think less about logics related to data management as Firebase does that with ease and with limited lines of code. The Firebase is free to use unless you want features like Test Labs (which runs a custom test scripts on hundreds of device configurations and gives you feedback) or increase cloud storage space, which is not usually required if you do not have a huge user base. Firebase is an important part of the development and will be with us for a long time to come.