Firebase
Google's app platform: login, Firestore database, file storage and free push notifications (FCM).
- Price
- Free Spark plan, then pay-as-you-go (Blaze)
- Free plan
- Yes
- Setup
- Needs a developer
- Up and running
- Login and push on a test app in a day; security rules and data modeling take most of a week.
What Firebase is for
Firebase is Google's kit for building apps without running your own server: login, a database (Firestore), file storage and free push notifications to phones. The app talks straight to Firebase from the phone or browser, so a small team ships fast. The catch is that Firestore stores data as documents, not tables, and your code gets shaped around it, so leaving later is real work.
How it plugs into your product
- 1Create a project in the Firebase console and pick the Firestore location closest to your users (it can't be changed later).
- 2Add the Firebase SDK to your Android, iOS or web app and turn on the login methods.
- 3Write security rules that say who can read and write each collection, since the app reads the database directly.
- 4Switch to the Blaze plan (card required) if you need file storage, server functions or SMS login, and set a budget alert.
Does it fit your idea?
It fits if
- A mobile app for a mostly Android audience that needs login and push notifications in the same week.
- A chat, feed or live-updating app where screens refresh as soon as data changes.
- An MVP with up to 50k monthly users and light reads that can stay on the free Spark plan.
Look elsewhere if
- A SaaS that lives on reports, joins and finance data you'll want to query in SQL.
- You need hard spending limits and can't risk an open-ended bill from a bug or bot traffic.
- You want user uploads on the free plan: file storage now requires the paid Blaze plan.
What people only find out after building
Read this before you build on it. Each item links to the official page that says so.
Since February 3, 2026, Cloud Storage requires the Blaze plan, even for the default bucket. On Spark, uploads and downloads fail until you add a card.
Official source: firebase.google.comBudget alerts don't stop anything: they only send email. On Blaze, a loop of reads keeps being billed until you notice.
Official source: firebase.google.comFirestore bills every document a query returns, and every change a live listener receives counts as a new read, so a busy list screen adds up fast.
Official source: firebase.google.comPhone (SMS) login only works on Blaze and is billed per SMS sent, on top of the free 50k users.
Official source: firebase.google.comThe database location is permanent: pick a far-away region by mistake and your users stay farther from their data for good.
Official source: firebase.google.com
Price
Free Spark plan, then pay-as-you-go (Blaze)
Spark plan: 50k monthly users, 1 GiB Firestore with daily read/write limits, push at no cost.
- Free tier
- Push free; 50k MAU; 1 GiB Firestore
- Paid plans
- Free on Spark (50k MAU included)
- Platforms
- Android, iOS and web
- Self-host
- No, Google Cloud only
- Database type
- NoSQL documents (Firestore)
Checked on Oct 28, 2026 · official pricing
What it costs in practice
With 2,000 monthly users, login and push are free. If each user loads 200 documents a day, that's 400k reads a day, about 12 million a month. The free 50k a day covers about 1.5 million; the other 10.5 million at $0.03 per 100k (us-central1) cost about $3/month on Blaze (estimate; the price varies by region).
Estimate from the official price. Check it before you decide.
At a glance
- Free plan: yes
- Open source: no
“Not stated” means the official site doesn’t say.
Alternatives
Compare side by side
SupabasePostgres database with login, file storage, edge functions and realtime in one project.
OneSignalPush notifications for mobile and web, plus in-app messages and email, managed from one dashboard.
MongoDB AtlasManaged MongoDB, a document database, running on AWS, Google Cloud or Azure.
ClerkDrop-in login and user management with ready-made sign-in screens for React and Next.js.
Faundr
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