Rob Dukarski
Aug 9, 2017 · 2 min read

I’ve worked with Firebase’s Database and Authentication in a Node.js environment for a few months where you are completely unable to tell that I’m using Firebase with it’s real-time functionality via help from Socket.io. I have not had any issues with it in that capacity and love that I can still get the real-time functionality of it without using it client-side, at all. I’m unsure if it’s optimized or ready for a lot of users but it works flawlessly for me by myself at least. I’m also unsure what else I could work with to have the real-time functionality and ease-of-use of Firebase without using Firebase. If I was aware how to get that functionality using a RDBMS then I probably would even if only to test the differences. In fact I believe I could somehow use Mailgun or a service like it to work around the non-pretty Account emails… My goal is to always have real-time functionality from data-to-user where whenever a change is made in the DB of the user has that data visible it would update to what’s in the DB without needing to refresh the page, without using a timer-based solution that checks for new data. Firebase allows me to get that functionality.

Please share any insight you may have otherwise. I’m not really sure where else to look to get the functionality I desire without using Firebase. Just thought I’d share because it seems you’ve had a bad experience but I haven’t had any unsolvable issues so far and with a cost of around $0.02 a month for my current use I cannot complain about that either…

Rob Dukarski

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23, Web Developer, Eagle Scout; Living the purple life!!