Why choose Firebase for your React Native app
Nowadays, storing and retrieving user-generated data is very common in mobile and web apps, and there are different types of services that give mobile and web developers the ability to store data.
Firebase is a platform developed by Google and it is a BaaS(backend-as-a-service), which means it allows both web and mobile developers to perform everyday backend tasks like user authentication and creating databases with no need for maintenance.
On the other hand React Native is a platform that allows developers to use their knowledge of React, a popular front-end framework, to build React native apps that work across both Android and iOS devices. React Native helps to manage the codebases of both iOS and Android versions for app development and improves your productivity.
Some of the features offered by Firebase are:
- Add the Firebase library to your app and get access to a shared data structure. The changes will automatically be updated and synchronized with the Firebase cloud and with other clients within milliseconds.
- Firebase apps update in real-time and out of the box, a apps can be written entirely with client-side code, scale automatically, interoperate well with exiting services, and provide strong data security.
- Data is stored as JSON in Firebase. Every data has its own URL, which can be used in Firebase’s client libraries and as a rest endpoint. You can also enter the URLs into a browser to view the data and watch it update in real-time.
To help you decide if the platform is worth your time and effort, we now evaluate its performance by comparing the pros and cons of Firebase.
Pros of Firebase Database:
- Real-time data and synchronization:
The biggest advantage of using Firebase is that the data is synchronized across all clients in real-time. This is an important characteristic of web or mobile app development when your app needs to provide certain functionalities.
2. Offline access:
Firebase provides independence to developers with additional offline persistence capabilities. It is crucial during unavailability or crispy network connections.
3. Minimal Steps:
Firebase comes with a cross-platform API that requires minimal setup during app development. Moreover, it does not need an application server to access data.
Cons Of Firebase Database:
- Data storage is annoying:
Usually, we see that developers use the Real-Time Database as the main storage, which isn’t always a good idea. The main problem is limited querying capabilities, You can’t query for more than one key at a time and the service doesn’t provide a way to filter your data.
2. Limits on transferring data:
You are not hosting the data, actually, the whole data is hosted on Firebase and it’s a major problem for using BaaS platforms as your app backend. Unless Firebase provides a transferring data tool for easy migration of user’s data, it strongly limits the data migration.
3. Android Centered:
Firebase doesn’t provide the same capabilities for Android and iOS apps. It’s still more Android-centered and it’s the one system that gets most of the dedicated services and facilities.
The security is given by the Firebase database:
Firebase comes with easy-to-understand security rules for databases. It is hosted on SSL, keeping the connection with the end devices and clients safe.
However, if you wish to use the Firebase database, you need to make sure that your data remains encrypted and that encryption keys and secrets are not stored in the database itself.
React Native app performance with Firebase:
Firebase is worthy of the scalable application when you want to transfer your to multiple users at the same time without having to worry about interruptions. In firebase, the data serves and synchronized very fast, so users can easily access files and data across the world.
Moreover, Firebase also provides web hosting with free CDN, cloud storage, and SSL. This puts Firebase ahead of traditional and local databases.
Firebase pricing:
Firebase offers a free plan that provides up to 1GB of data storage. However, it also offers additional storage at a minimal price of USD 0.18 per GB as well as a pay-as-you-go plan.
Conclusion:
Summing up the pros and cons of Firebase, it’s a good choice if you plan to build a new product from scratch or rewrite an existing one. The platform helps in storing and improving the dynamic content. Also, accelerates the development process, enabling getting faster results — so it’s a perfect one for building an MVP!
If you think about start or develop a React Native App, and you need a dedicated cloud solution — contact us!
