What is Firebase Authentication?

With all the technological advancements, more and more functionalities authentication plays a vital role in the online world. One of the biggest things to consider these days is security, and user authentication is one of the best solutions to ensure security at users’ end.

However, implementing this technology is not as easy as it seems, and the platforms like Firebase make it easier for the developers to implement authentication. The article will explain Firebase Authentication services and following the structure below:

• Authentication Overview
• Benefits of authentication
• Overview of Firebase Authentication service
• Firebase Authentication Advantages
• Firebase Authentication Core Features
• Firebase Authentication Pricing
• Conclusion

Keep reading to know more.

What is authentication?

When an online system is implemented, it is essential to keep track of whether the person accessing the platform is the person who is declared to access it or not. One of the best ways to check this is by using a method that tests that person.

This checking is known as authentication. It is done in many ways, and one of the most common ones is SMS, call, or email verification. In this authentication way, the connected account or contact gets to verify and authenticate that no undeclared person is accessing the platform.

Why is authentication important?

The organizations and the platforms need to keep their system of networks secure. It is because any loophole can not only cause issues at users’ end, but this will also be very problematic at their end. So, by using authentication, the organizations and platforms make their protected resources more secure. These resources mainly include the following.

1. Computer systems.
2. Databases
3. Networks
4. Network-based applications.
5. Services
6. Websites

The best part about authentication is that it makes it easy to filter out the users from any part of the system. When a user is authenticated, they can use the system as an authorized user. However, if they fail to authenticate successfully, they will not be allowed to use the system.

What is Firebase authentication?

Firebase authentication is a feature of user authentication that is provided by Firebase as its backend services. This is a token-based authentication system that provides easy integration with most of the platforms.

The best part is that it is a role-based system, which means you can create different roles for different users. Another great feature here is that this authentication is effortless to integrate with the API from Firebase, making this feature up and running easily in no time.

Firebase authentication advantages

Firebase authentication service comes with a lot of different advantages. Here are some of them.

• Save time on developing web services methods for authentication

When you are building any web application, a mobile application, or a computer application for the system’s security, you have to save the login credentials and other authentication means.

This takes a lot of time because you have to implement different services for this. However, when you use Firebase authentication, you will not have to do a lot of coding. The information that needs to be stored will be stored in Firebase’s system, and Firebase will efficiently handle every type of authentication service.

• Analytics

One of the most important things in an application’s development and future is how it is being improved. One of the best ways to improve the application is by making it better for the users in terms of user experience and features. Firebase authentication is also an exceptional platform in this case.

It is because it provides detailed analytics about the users’ information and interaction on your platform. This demographic information and analytics of users make it extremely efficient for improvement purposes.

Firebase authentication core features

Although this is a feature of Firebase backend services with a very narrow field of scope, it still comes with many core features. Here we will discuss all of these core features in detail.

• Drop-in authentication solution

This is one of the best ways of adding an authentication feature to your system. This consists of a complete sign-in system for your application. The system uses email addresses and passwords for sign-in, and it works for all mobile and web apps.

One of the best things here is that this feature is open-source. You can add this feature to your app using the authentication SDK from Firebase.

• Federated identity provider integration.

Apart from credential authentication, one of the best ways for authentication and the most popular authentication is by using some other federated identity providers. By using the Firebase authentication services, you can let the users sign-in using the following platforms.

1. Google
2. Facebook
3. Twitter
4. GitHub

• Phone number authentication

Another amazing feature of Firebase authentication is that the users can be authenticated using their phone numbers by sending an SMS. It’s a good feature, and it works well according to the situation.

• Custom authentication system integration

If you want to use your application’s existing authentication system, you can integrate it with Firebase authentication services to use the real-time database services from Firebase.

Firebase authentication pricing

Firebase provides free services for the free package of authentication services for the best experience for all users. This package lacks limits phone numbers authentication 10,000 per month only.

However, the paid package is a pay as you go service plan. It is known as the Blaze package, and you can get all the services you need here. One of the best things here is that everything has a separate price according to its unit, and you only have to pay for the services you use.

Conclusion

This article explained the Firebase Authentication service. The core features include SMS and Social Network authentication. The system’s main advantages are ease of use and integration with other Firebase services like analytics. The pricing works under a Free and usage-based model and starts at $0.01 per SMS authentication.

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