How firebase can help us develop an app quickly and put it into production.
Firebase is a toolkit developed by Google to support developers and tech teams to build and scale their applications faster. For offering resources like Database, Authentication, Data Analytics, Machine Learning and much more, Firebase is perfect for the tech team to deploy an application without worrying about server configuration. Furthermore, if there is a marketing team, they will be more satisfied with the generated reports provided by the toolkit.
Firebase offers us excellent services for the development and growth of the business, which can be used free of charge with some resources. But they also have paid plans with resources made available based on the value.
For developers, it is important to note that Firebase can be used for web, mobile (Android and iOS) and Unit applications.
Among these resources for developers we can highlight:
Realtime Database: the original Firebase database. It’s an efficient, low-latency solution for mobile apps that require synchronized states between clients in real time.
Firestore: the newest Firebase database for developing apps for mobile devices. It builds on the results of the Realtime Database with a new, more intuitive data model. The Cloud Firestore also has more advanced and faster queries, in addition to better scalability than the Realtime Database. Both Firestore and Realtime Database offer real-time update functionality.
For more information on which database to choose you can access https://firebase.google.com/docs/database/rtdb-vs-firestore?hl=en.
Authentication services: Firebase Authentication provides back-end services, easy-to-use SDKs and UI libraries ready to authenticate users in your application. It supports authentication using passwords, phone numbers, well-known federated identity providers such as Google, Facebook and Twitter, among others.
Cloud storage: Cloud Storage is designed for app developers to store and display user-generated content, such as photos or videos, and some other features.
For analysis and growth we can mention: notifications, ads, and:
A/B testing: Firebase’s A / B testing helps you to optimize the app experience, making it easier to run, analyze and scale product and marketing experiments. In addition, you can test engagement campaigns or changes to the app’s UI features to see if they’re working as expected against your core metrics (like revenue and retention) before they’re fully implemented.
Analytics: a free app analytics solution that provides insights into app usage and user engagement (events, dashboard, funnels, in app messaging). The SDK automatically captures a series of user properties and events, and allows you to define custom events to evaluate items relevant to your business. The captured data is available on a panel in the Firebase Console. This dashboard contains detailed insights into your data, from summary data such as active users and demographic information, to details such as identifying the most purchased items, and some other features.
Now that we have looked at several advantages of using Firebase, it is important to know some of its disadvantages to help us make a better choice when using the platform. We can mention:
- The learning curve: it may take longer than expected for the developers to understand how this SDK works;
- Developers dependency on this solution: if they only know Firebase, they can be limited;
- Platform limitations: if the development team does not master the tool, the many limits in the data structuring can end up appearing and harming the project;
- High prices: you can end up paying Firebase a big amount of money if your developers don’t know the tool very well and as a result make many errors in resource management, mainly related to unnecessary number of readings and writings in the database.
Finally, Firebase is an excellent tool that can help us test our MVPs for small and medium projects in terms of software and business management metrics. If the team has professionals with expertise in Firebase, the projects will certainly develop faster and better.
References:
Firebase documentation: https://firebase.google.com/docs
Firebase products: https://firebase.google.com/products-build
Firebase release: https://firebase.google.com/products-release
Firebase Engage: https://firebase.google.com/products-engage
A/B testing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/B_testing
