Differences between Firebase and Firestore

Firebase is a full-fledged Backend as a Service (BaaS) platform with powerful Google support.

Contrarily, Firestore is a real-time and fully managed database that works as a product of Firebase and Google Cloud.

However, if you are still confused between these two computing services, let’s explore the differences between Firebase vs Firestore.

• Firebase – An all-inclusive application development platform owned by Google

• Cloud Firestore – A NoSQL database works as a part of Firebase to sync, query and backlog data in the meantime

This is the crucial difference between these two computing solutions. So, let’s figure out Firestore vs Firebase features, pricing and advantages in detail. 

What is Firebase?

Firebase is a renowned BaaS solution that aids you in building, deploying, and scaling mobile, web, and gaming applications.

This fully managed app development platform is compatible with iOS, web, Android, C++, and Unity applications. 

You don’t have to manage hardware or backend resources in this regard. Yes, you don’t have to invest time handling servers or crafting APIs. You can simply emphasize core competencies, and Firebase deals with all server-side functionalities. 

If we talk about the Firebase products, you can divide them into three categories: Build, Release & Monitor and Engage.

If we start by gathering and fetching data, Firebase hands over two types of databases. One is Realtime Database, authorized to query, backlog, and sync data spontaneously.

The second is Cloud Firestore, which also deals with data in the meantime. Both of these databases are NoSQL. 

Correspondingly, remote config, cloud functions, Crashlytics, cloud storage and authentication are also crucial products of Firebase.

With these products, Firebase promises fast app development & deployment and hosts apps with 99.99% uptime. 

Companies Using Firebase: The major companies and applications that use Firebase are Duolingo, Venmo, Lyft, Halfbrick and The New York Times. 

Firebase Features

Here are the significant features of Firebase:

• Realtime Database – This JSON database follows the NoSQL approach. It enables developers to sync, fetch and backlog data in the meantime. You can also approach this data through any of your mobile or desktop devices, even when you are offline. It utilizes a local cache to deliver and gather data for offline optimization.

• Cloud Firestore – Cloud Firestore is another exciting NoSQL and real-time database that you can seamlessly integrate with Google Cloud and Firebase. This serverless database has the ability to form data with documents and collections. Besides, it allows you to synchronize data across multiple devices and platforms.  

• Remote Config – This is one of the most attractive Firebase features that helps several tech giants improve revenues, sales, and user engagements. Likewise, Halfbrick surged its revenues by 16%, and Ahoy Games enhanced its sales by 13% using remote config. It lets you personalize the user experience and grants more control over the application. 

• Cloud Functions – These JS functions enable you to run server-side codes without governing servers. Yes, you can set up the codes via a single command. Moreover, you can’t only add business logic to applications through this feature but can also keep your logic confidential. 

• Authentication – Firebase authentication is known for delivering a comprehensive user management system to businesses and dev teams. With an end-to-end identification service, you can get a fully tailored UI for user registration and sign-in. Also, you can deploy the authentication with a less than 10 lines script to speed up implementation. 

• Hosting – With the powerful support of Firebase and Google Cloud, it is on the fly to host your applications. It offers enterprise-grade security and global CDN to deploy and host applications on Firebase. You can also quickly integrate your GitHub with this CSP and host your codes with a push. In this regard, Firebase backs all popular frameworks, including React, Vue, Next, Angular, and Vite.

• Cloud Storage – If you are looking for highly scalable storage infrastructure that leading applications Spotify and Google Photos use, consider Firebase Cloud Storage. Firebase SDKs empower you to install and download multiple files, photos, and videos within a few clicks only. 

• Firebase ML – This advanced Firebase product comes under the beta category. It basically helps in the deployment of custom and existing models. You can efficiently utilize it to build and deploy your machine learning and AI-related projects. eBay Motor has already leveraged this technology to improve user experience. 

• Cloud Messaging – FCM is responsible for building a communication bridge between your devices and servers. Dev teams can customize email and push notifications without any coding here. Fortunately, FCM is free whether you pick the Spark Plan or the pay-as-you-go model. 

• Crashlytics – Are you finding a crash reporting tool for your iOS, Flutter, Android or Unity application? If yes, utilize Crashlytics. It allows you to view critical insights of your application. Moreover, it keeps you aware of the root cause of a failure in real time. 

• App Distribution – This excellent Firebase feature lets you view pre-released Android or iOS application versions. Therefore, you can get valuable feedback before releasing the final version of your application. 

• A/B Testing – Firebase A/B Testing helps businesses smartly optimize their applications. You can confidently conduct various modifications and tailor the user experiences. It is good to use this feature with Google Analytics to get more accurate outcomes.  

• In-App Messaging – This beta product assists you in attaining and retaining potential customers. It is responsible for sending highly personalized messages to application users. Also, it operates in conjunction with Google Analytics, so you can easily track the results. 

Firebase Pricing

Firebase classifies its pricing into the following two models:

Free Tier 

You can begin using Firebase with nothing through its No-cost or Spark Plan. It confers 5GB storage, 50k/month active users auth and 10GB for hosting. 

Best for: Prototypes, small apps and new developers

Pay-as-you-go

You can move to Blaze Plan when your required instances go beyond the offered limits. Under this pricing model, you only have to pay for used resources. The use of Blaze Calculator is also a suitable option to estimate the cost. 

Best for: SMEs, large enterprises and production environments

To explore more about the pricing structure of this CSP, you should read this article about Google Firebase Pricing. 

What is Firestore?

Cloud Firestore, which is also famous with the name of Google Firestore, is a real-time, NoSQL database that works as a part of Firebase.

This highly scalable document database is ideal for unifying, inquiring and storing data. Firebase released this database in 2017 as a replacement for the Realtime Database. 

You can conveniently approach this database to build serverless and secure web and mobile applications.

In this regard, Firestore doesn’t only work with Firebase but also integrates with Google Cloud. Developers can utilize this Firebase database with conventional client libraries, including Java, Go, Node.js, and Python. 

Correspondingly, Google Firestore provides incredible SDKs, REST and RPC API support for all popular programming technologies. Cloud Functions play an essential role in carrying out backend tasks in response to modifications in the database. 

On the other hand, if we talk about querying and structuring data, Firestore proceeds with documents and collections.

Cloud Firestore constructs hierarchies to backlog relevant data. This approach is also beneficial when it comes to fetching required data. 

This real-time document database lets you store and modify data when you are offline and sync it with servers when you go online.

Furthermore, Firestore is considered a highly scalable database where you can extend resources anytime without managing infrastructure.

Companies Using Firestore: Hawkin Dynamics, Acintyo and Le Figaro are top companies using Cloud Firestore for different tech stacks. 

Firestore Features

• Serverless Database – Cloud Firestore is a serverless and fully managed document database. Robust scalability is one of the critical advantages of serverless databases. You can expand the software or hardware resources anytime because of the in-built autoscaling function. High productivity and less operational cost are also pros of using this database.

• Query Engine – To keep the data persistent in the database, Firestore enables ACID transactions. With these properties like atomicity, consistency, durability and isolation, you can ensure data adequacy regardless of glitches or power outages. Moreover, this powerful query engine empowers you to form data in a more organized manner.

• Security – Developers can seamlessly integrate Firestore with Identity Platform and Authentication to fulfill security needs. In this way, dev teams can implement highly tailored identity-centric access controls. Similarly, Firestore authorizes data validation through configuration language. 

• Realtime & Offline Synchronization – Cloud Firestore leverages readymade synchronization traits to update data across multiple IoT, mobile, and web devices. This data could be related to activity tracking, user profiles, gaming activities, or app analytics. Contrarily, Firestore also has the ability to conduct data caching when your device is offline and sync this data with the server when you reaccess the internet. 

• Datastore Mode – Datastore is an exciting offering of Google Cloud that enables you to scale large data applications quickly. Yes, you can control an app’s performance if you get high traffic with this product. Luckily, Firestore offers complete backing for Datastore API. So, you can guarantee highly extensive storage for your application. 

Firestore Pricing

Cloud Firestore provides two types of pricing models:

Free Tier

If your app requirements are limited to 1 GiB stored data, 50k/day reads, 20k/day writes, 20k/day deletes and 10GiB/month data transfer, you can employ a free tier. 

Pay-As-Go-You

Variables like bandwidth, database storage, and number of transactions decide the pricing for your project. Have a look at the following pricing details about using Cloud Firestore:

Cloud Firestore vs Firebase Comparison

Difference Between Firebase Realtime Database and Cloud Firestore

Let’s have a look over Firebase Realtime Database vs. Cloud Firestore credentials:

• A Real-time DB is a typical cloud-hosted database offered by Firebase. This JSON database is suitable for elementary data models requiring less scalability. Cloud Firestore, on the other hand, is an advanced alternative to Firebase Realtime DB. Firestore is an enterprise-level NoSQL database compatible with complex data models that need more scalability. 
  
• More than 250k developers across the globe use Firestore because of its multi-region deployments and improved querying and scaling properties. Also, Firestore confers offline support for iOS, Android, and web applications, but Firebase Realtime DB doesn’t offer offline synchronization for web applications. 
  
• Firestore is considered a highly available solution because of the maximum uptime. Yes, the uptime of Firestore is 99.999%, and the uptime performance of Realtime DB is 99.95%.
  
• Automatic scaling gives Cloud Firestore an edge over Realtime DB. You can scale 200k simultaneous connections and 1k writes/sec with Firebase Realtime DB. However, Firestore enables you to rise to 1 million connections and 10k writes/sec. Developers also consider Firestore a more reasonable solution because of these features. 

Conclusion

In short, Firebase is an application development platform that works under the ownership of Google. It provides a vast range of products to build, deploy and host applications without managing backend infrastructure.  

However, Firestore is a cloud-hosted NoSQL database that works as a product of Firebase. Its multi-region replications, real-time updates, security, AI integrations and offline synchronizations make it a better choice than Firebase Realtime DB.

Hopefully, this guide will assist you in better understanding the differences between Firebase and Firestore.