The best Firebase alternatives in 2024

Are you looking for alternatives to Firebase in 2024? In this tutorial, you will learn about multiple Firebase alternatives. This article will cover competitors like Back4App, Parse, Backendless, Supabase, Appwrite, Nhost, etc.

Key Takeaways

• Key reasons to look for Firebase alternatives are lock-in and cost complexity
• Some alternatives to Firebase include Back4app, Backendless, and Kinsta
• The article provides the key features, pricing, and review for each Firebase alternative

Firebase Overview

Firebase is Google’s app development platform. It helps developers to build, improve, and grow their applications smoothly and standardized. 

It offers a robust feature set that focuses on three main pillars:

• Helping users to build apps faster
• Releasing apps with confidence, performance, and stability
• Increasing user engagement after releasing the app 

The platform works well for mobile and web applications, and Google designed it to increase digital product creation productivity.

The core features of Firebase include NoSQL databases, real-time queries, scalable hosting, data storage, file storage, REST APIs, authentication, machine learning, and analytics. 

Why look for Firebase Alternatives? 

While Firebase offers an increasingly sophisticated array of services that handle various development requirements, it’s not always the easiest, fastest, or most affordable option.

The article “Reasons Not to Use Firebase” also enlightened me about the risks of using Firebase.

Some users look for Firebase alternatives because the free tier is not available to all Firebase services, the Firebase service does not work in China, complex queries may be slow in some situations, and the platform lacks flexibility.

It’s not open-source and has vendor lock-in

Firebase is a Google-backed, closed-source platform with many excellent features, allowing developers to create an MVP quickly.

However, vendor lock-in is one of its biggest concerns among developers and the main shortcoming of Firebase.

A closed-source platform does not allow developers to adjust the source code to their specific needs, review it to ensure it matches their standards or customize the environment to achieve maximum performance.

Pricing model is complex and hard to predict

Firebase server costs can increase significantly as an app begins to scale. Although Firebase offers a free plan, the free tier’s limitations make it suitable for small apps only.

Once the app starts scaling, there is a need to upgrade to the Blaze plan, which does not have a fixed pricing structure. Blaze is a pay-as-you-go service plan that charges based on your app’s server resources.

In essence, users cannot fix the maximum monthly budget for an app. Consequently, users may get unpleasant surprises by the end of the billing cycle.

Until January 2020, Firebase offered the Flame Plan. It was a fixed-price plan for $25/month, but this option is no longer available.

Some users were heavily affected by this change. Please learn more by reading the article Firebase Costs Increased 7,000%.

It’s not self-hosted it only supports the GCP hosting option

Firebase offers only one type of cloud hosting setup on the Google Cloud Platform. So, users have to use Firebase cloud infrastructure and share resources with other applications.

This approach is not the best option for complex applications that require customized server settings for optimal performance.

Since Firebase does not offer Dedicated Server or Enterprise contracts, users may face several limitations once the app begins to scale.

Privacy & Data Storage

According to item 1.5 of Firebase’s Terms of Service, users may select the data location for certain paid services.

For paid services where data location is not available, Firebase can store data in any Google facility. Please find the paragraph below:

1.5: Data Location. For certain Paid Services, Customer may select the region(s) Customer Data will be stored (“Data Location Selection”), and Google will store that Customer Data at rest in the selected region(s). The Data Location Selection does not limit the locations from which Customer or Customer End Users may access Customer Data or to which they may move Customer Data and may not apply to Customer Data used with other Google products or services. For purposes of this section, Customer Data does not include resource identifiers, attributes, or other data labels. If a Data Location Selection is not available for the Paid Services (or a Data Location Selection is not made by Customer with respect to any Customer Data), Google may process and store the Customer Data anywhere Google or its agents maintain facilities.

Firebase Privacy and Security documentation revealed that the platform satisfies GDPR requirements. The document also showed that the data storage and processing locations might vary by service.

Google may use Firebase Service Data to improve non-Firebase Google services. Firebase allows users to turn off this control and avoid data collection.

Both databases are NoSQL, and there is no SQL option 

Firebase works with a closed-source NoSQL database for Firestore and the Real-Time database. It imposes users the restrictions of a NoSQL database, including limited querying and indexing.

GraphQL APIs are not available on the regular setup

One weakness of Firebase is the lack of support for GraphQL APIs. It works perfectly with REST and has extensive documentation for developers. However, Firebase does not support GraphQL at this time.

Top Firebase Hosting Alternatives

Here are some of the best alternatives to Firebase, and keep reading to learn more about these Firebase-like solutions:

Back4App

Back4app is a reliable AI-powered Firebase alternative built on top of open-source technologies.

Its core features include a real-time database, APIs, user management & authentication, custom code execution, storage, and push notifications. 

The platform is straightforward to use and has a low learning curve. It comes with a predictable and easy-to-understand pricing plan.

Best of all, it offers a free tier, which is great for testing out the platform.

The platform makes building APIs a breeze since it auto-generates RESTful and GraphQL APIs for your database models. Moreover, it provides SDKs for all your favorite programming languages.

By utilizing Back4app, you can significantly accelerate your app-building process. There will be no need to deal with your backend’s underlying infrastructure, scaling, maintenance, etc.

The platform has been around since 2015 and has been battle-tested by many companies, including Accenture, Fight List, 1001 Apps, etc.

The customer case, Scaling a Game App to 55 Million Users, explained how the game development company Two4Tea successfully scaled its game Fight List using Back4App’s services. 

According to G2, the platform has 4.8 out of 5 stars and is highly rated for its ease of use, setup, and quality support. 

Please check the article How to build a mobile app backend to discover how to develop and host a backend. 

Pricing

• Free Tier — Great for testing out the platform
• Serverless Hosting — starts at $25/month
• Dedicated Hosting — starts at $500/month

Core Features

• Real-time database
• Auto-generated GraphQL and REST APIs for your database classes
• Serverless functions via Cloud Code
• Notifications
• Authentication

Why use Back4app as a Firebase alternative? 

Some developers consider Back4App better than Firebase for the following reasons:

• No vendor lock-in
• Supports NoSQL as well as SQL
• Built on top of open-source software
• Multi-cloud deployment options
• It’s a Firebase self-hosted alternative
• Allow you to perform complex relational queries
• Dedicated hosting and Enterprise plans
• It’s a Firebase alternative in China
• Excellent 24/7 customer support

Read the article Back4App vs. Firebase to understand the differences between both platforms better. 

Keep reading to discover more Firebase similar platforms. 

Parse

Parse is a popular free alternative to Firebase. The platform’s main features include an easy-to-use dashboard, real-time NoSQL database, user management & authentication, file storage, and built-in analytics. 

Additionally, the platform provides SDKs for most popular programming languages, such as JavaScript, PHP, and Dart.

It is open-source, free to use and download, and protected under the Apache-2.0 license.

The platform offers a great developer experience due to its customizability and extensibility.

For example, the core features of Parse include an easy-to-use dashboard, graphical database interface, APIs, and object storage adapters to multiple services like S3, etc. 

Another advantage of Parse is the multi-cloud deployment options. Since the entire framework is open-source, users can download the repositories from GitHub and self-host their application on any major cloud provider such as AWS, DigitalOcean, Google Cloud, etc.

The article Chisel CMS – a headless CMS use-case for Parse-Server discusses Chisel, an open-source headless CMS built on Parse-Server, designed to complement the Jamstack movement. It explained the benefits of using Parse Server for CMS development.

Parse has been running for a long time, and a large and engaged developer community supports it. It has over 35k GitHub stars and is a thoroughly tested framework for faster application development.

Pricing

Parse is free to download and use and it is protected under the permissive Apache 2.0 License.

Core Features

• Spreadsheet-like database
• User management & authentication
• Authentication
• Various storage adapters
• Push-Notifications

Why use Parse as a Firebase alternative? 

• It’s open-source
• No vendor lock-in
• Multi-cloud deployment options
• Large developer community support
• Thoroughly tested framework

Keep reading to discover more Firebase competitors. 

AWS Amplify

AWS Amplify is Amazon’s Backend as a Service (BaaS) solution.

The platform allows you to rapidly build highly scalable full-stack web and mobile applications. Its main features include user management, authentication, file storage, push notifications, built-in CI/CD, and more!

AWS Amplify orchestrates many popular AWS services, such as Cognito, DynamoDB, Lambda, S3, and AppSync. It allows you to manage all of the mentioned services through an easy-to-use dashboard.

Using AWS Amplify, it is possible to configure a backend in minutes, ship faster, and scale effortlessly.

The platform integrates with other AWS services like Dynamo DB, Lambda, S3, Cognito, AppSync, etc. 

Building an application using AWS Amplify is easy and involves steps like creating the backend, connecting it to the application, managing users, and creating the UI. 

For example, the most common use cases include building data models, hosting progressive web applications, hosting static sites, and user authentication. 

The AWS case study on Neiman Marcus describes how the luxury retailer accelerated its digital selling application launch using AWS’s cloud-native and serverless technologies, particularly AWS Amplify.

This approach enabled a 50% faster market introduction and a 90% reduction in development costs.

According to G2, the platform has 4.2 out of 5 stars and is favorably rated for helping users build serverless applications on the AWS environment and being a stable solution.

Pricing

AWS Amplify’s pricing structure is relatively complex.  The service itself is free, but you do pay for the underlying AWS services your app consumes.

• Free tier to start
• Pay as you go model above the free threshold 
• $0.01 per build per minute
• $0.023/GB per month
• $0.15/GB served

Core Features

• Authentication via AWS Cognito
• Real-time and offline data storage
• File storage via AWS S3
• Built-in analytics
• Push notifications

Why use AWS Amplify as a Firebase alternative? 

• Backed by AWS
• Makes it easy to integrate with other AWS services
• You’re already familiar with AWS
• Frontend UI elements

Backendless

Backendless is a visual application development platform that helps users build scalable applications quickly.

It has been operating since 2012 and is one of the pioneering Backend as a Service (BaaS) solutions.

Using Backendless, it is possible to create real-time applications, location-aware apps, and mobile and web apps.

The visual app builder makes the experience of developing apps intuitive, easy to manage, and fast. On top of that, it allows people with less technical knowledge to build pretty complex apps.

The platform offers exceptional customer support. If you’re ever stuck it’s easy to get help on Slack or forums. The company also provides professional services for custom development projects.

The visual app builder makes the experience of developing apps intuitive, easy to manage, and fast.

Backendless’s showcase, including clients like Bettercast and Bank al Etihad, highlights its versatility.

A key example is the University of Concepción, where Backendless efficiently managed a large-scale educational app, proving its ability to deliver scalable, user-friendly solutions for complex educational needs.

According to G2, the platform is highly praised for its user-friendliness, simple setup process, and exceptional support.

Pricing

Backendless offers three different pricing categories:

• Backendless Cloud — Free tier and paid plans starting at $15/month
• Backendless Pro — from $10k to $50k/year
• Managed Backendless — Under quotation

Core Features

• Real-time database
• User management and authentication
• Instant API & API Services
• Built-in no code tools (i.e., UI Builder)
• Pub/Sub messaging

Why use Backendless as a Firebase alternative? 

• It’s easy to use
• It offers a visual development tool kit
• It provides integrations with 3rd-party tools like Bubble, Zapier, and AppGyver
• It offers on-premise deployment 
• It offers dedicated plans
• Easy data import/export

Kuzzle

Kuzzle offers three different products, and the company is focused on IoT and open-source software.

The first one is an IoT suite designed to streamline the deployment of IoT applications. The second one is a backend to facilitate the development of web and mobile applications. The third one is a Platform as a Service focused on IoT deployment. 

The open-source products are great options for data management and IoT development. Using Kuzzle, you can create projects for Smart Cities, Smart Logistics, Smart Buildings, etc.

The application stack is free to download, and you can self-host an application or use Kuzzle’s cloud to host it. The platform offers multiple SDKs options, including Javascript, C#, Dart, and Golang.

The company has operated since 2015, with customers like Biogen, La Poste, Veolia, and SNCF on its portfolio.

The Kuzzle IoT case study on Connected Construction Sites highlights how Bouygues Construction’s Omniscient service used Kuzzle IoT for real-time geolocation and management of construction resources.

According to FeaturedCustomers, Kuzzle, the platform has 4.8 of 5 stars, and reviewers say it’s an excellent replacement for Firebase and offers hosting in France. 

Pricing

• Free to download
• Support plans of €500, €1,000, and Premium under quotation
• Professional Services, Training, PoC under quotation

Features

• Open-source
• Multiple solutions: Backend, IoT, PaaS
• Built-in authentication
• Real-time data engine
• Pub/Sub engine

Why use Kuzzle as a Firebase alternative? 

• It’s open-source
• It has fit-to-purpose IoT features
• No vendor lock-in
• It offers professional services and training
• It offers tailor-made support plans

Supabase

Supabase is an excellent open-source alternative to Firebase.

The platform lets you get an app up and running in less than 2 minutes. It provides a Postgres database, authentication, instant APIs, edge functions, storage, real-time subscriptions, and more!

Its ease of use and flexibility allow the developers to build backends for different types of apps — from real-time apps and web crawlers to static presentation websites.

Supabase can be either self-hosted or hosted in the Supabase cloud. Recently, Supabase also added tools for building and deploying AI-based applications.

Next Door Lending, a top national mortgage broker, utilized Supabase for effective data management and user experience enhancements.

This enabled them to efficiently manage a growing borrower base and integrate advanced analytics, significantly boosting their business scalability and operational efficiency.

Supabase is a young company and has been running since 2020. Although it is a new player in this market, it has a large and engaged developer community to support the open-source repository. It has more than 62k stars and 6k forks on GitHub.

As of the date of this writing, according to Product Hunt, the platform has 4.9 out of 5 stars and is highly rated for its developer experience and excellent documentation.

Pricing

• Free Tier — For testing & prototyping
• PRO Plan — $25/month
• Team Plan — $599/month
• Enterprise Plan — Under quotation

Features

• Postgres-backed database
• Open-source authentication (with integrations)
• Serverless Edge Functions
• Straightforward object storage
• Real-time data synchronization

Why use Supabase as a Firebase alternative? 

• It’s open-source
• Developer-oriented platform 
• A growing community of developers 
• It’s based on PostgreSQLand supports pgvector
• It offers multiple deployment options
• No vendor lock-in

appwrite

Appwrite is an open-source platform for building backends for web, mobile, and desktop apps.

The platform’s main features include authentication (with social integrations), database management, serverless functions, messaging, storage, and real-time API.

It is highly developer-oriented and offers an extensive set of features. The platform can be self-hosted or hosted in the cloud.

Appwrite offers native support for most popular technologies and frameworks, including Flutter, Next.js, React, Svelte, Vue, and Angular.

Even though it is a young company that launched in 2019, it has grown its open-source repository massively and has more than 41k Github stars. 

As of the date of this writing, according to Product Hunt, the platform has 4.9 out of 5 stars and is positively rated as an intuitive backend and ease of setup. 

Pricing

• Starter Plan — Completely free
• Pro Plan — $15 per member per month
• Scale Plan — $685 per organization per month
• Enterprise Plan — Under quotation

Features

• User management & authentication
• SQL Database (MariaDB)
• File storage
• Serverless Functions

Why use appwrite as a Firebase alternative? 

• It’s open-source
• Developer-oriented platform
• A growing community of developers 
• It’s easy to use

Nhost

NHost is another open-source alternative for Firebase. It is an open-source backend and development platform that enables you to build and scale apps quickly.

It features a Postgres database, real-time GraphQL API, authentication, storage, serverless functions, and more. On top of that, it integrates with third-party services such as Hasura and Graphite.

Nhost provides everything a Jamstack app would need.

The platform focuses on the developer experience. It allows developers to develop locally and quickly push the code to the cloud. Additionally, it comes with a feature-rich command line interface (CLI).

Nhost has excellent regional support, offering 80+ CDN locations and six regions over four continents.

The company started operations in 2019 and currently supports clients like HyperLab, Servehub, NautaCapital, and Terminator.

Boom.tv, collaborating with AAA game studio Midnight Society, adopted Nhost for its web app development, benefiting from its open-source authentication and comprehensive backend services, leading to an efficient and successful game launch.

As of the date of this writing, according to Product Hunt, the platform has 5 out of 5 stars and is positively rated for fast responses to questions, listening to developer’s requirements, and smooth functioning. 

Pricing

• Starter Plan — Completely free
• Pro Plan — $25 per project per month
• Team Plan — $599 per project per month
• Enterprise Plan — Under quotation

Features

• Postgres-backed database
• Powerful authentication
• Instant GraphQL APIs
• File storage supporting CDNs
• Hosting for custom services

Why use Nhost as a Firebase alternative? 

• It’s open-source
• Low learning curve
• Great developer experience
• It supports GraphQL
• No vendor lock-in
• It’s open-source
• Low learning curve
• Great developer experience
• It supports GraphQL
• No vendor lock-in

Kinsta

Kinsta is more of a “traditional” cloud hosting platform.

The platform allows developers to deploy WordPress applications, as well as static and dynamic web applications. Its other features include automated backups, staging branches, built-in security, and excellent scaling capabilities.

By utilizing Kinsta, developers can deploy apps with just a few clicks!

Trango Tech, a mobile app development company, saw a 20% increase in website speed and a 10% rise in sales after moving to Kinsta’s hosting services, allowing them to focus on new product development.

On top of that, Kinsta is leveraged by companies such as Tripadvisor, Unicef, ClickUp, and ScreamingFrog.

As of the date of this writing, according to G2, the platform has 4.8 out of 5 stars and is positively rated as a great combination of customer support, reliability, and performance. 

Pricing

Kinsta has different pricing for different services:

• Static Sites — Free
• WordPress Hosting — $30/month
• Web Applications — $7/month
• Managed Databases — $18/month

Features

• Managed databases
• Static & dynamic web app hosting
• Runtime for Python, PHP, Node.js, Go, and others
• Out-of-box WordPress and WooCommerce hosting

Why use Kinsta as a Firebase alternative? 

• Easy to use
• Traditional approach to hosting
• Hosting for databases, applications, and WordPress
• 37 datacenters available for deployment
• SOC2 compliant

Hasura

Hasura lets you effortlessly connect all your databases, services, and code into a unified graph. 

By leveraging Hasura, you can build APIs up to ten times faster than traditional API building. The platform is known for its high performance, reliability, and scalability. 

Another great thing about it is that it features advanced CI/CD tooling that enables rapid iteration.

Compared to Firebase, it offers fewer features, but it’s perfect in what it does.

It supports multiple database options, including Postgres, SQL Server, Amazon Aurora, and Google Big Query. Hasura offers you a free-to-download version or a hosted cloud option.

The company has operated since 2017, and the client showcase includes names like Netlify, BBVA, Walmart, and Atlassian. 

The case study on Philips Healthcare and Hasura highlights how Philips leveraged Hasura’s GraphQL technology for its Radiology Operations Command Centre, accelerating development up to 4 times faster than traditional methods.

Pricing

• Hasura Cloud
  • Free tier
  • Professional – Starts at $1.5/active hour
  • Enteprise – Custom pricing
• Self-Hosted
  • Community edition – Free
  • Enterprise edition – Under quotation

Features

• Multi-database support
• Instant GraphQL APIs
• Fine-grained access control
• High-performance solution 
• Powerful CLI

Why use Hasura as a Firebase alternative? 

• It’s open-source
• It supports NoSQL and SQL databases
• It works with external databases
• It offers Enterprise plans
• Low-latency

Other Firebase Alternatives

Other Firebase alternatives include Ably for realtime messaging and notifications, PubNub for realtime features, 8Base for users looking for AI-based development, and Heroku for users to deploy full stack application and not only their backends.

Firebase Alternatives Comparison

Conclusion

Firebase is a robust app development platform from Google. It supports customers in developing and improving applications quickly during the entire development and production cycle.

Although it offers excellent benefits, its limitations rely on not being open-source, vendor lock-in, lack of SQL databases, and lack of availability in multiple countries like China.

This article explored multiple Firebase alternatives, provided an overview of each solution, and highlighted the core features, pricing structure, and advantages of Firebase.

The Firebase alternatives list includes companies offering open-source solutions like Back4app, appwrite, or Supabase.

It also covers fit-to-purpose platforms to solve specific problems, like PubNub for real-time solutions and Kuzzle for IoT applications.