{"id":116,"date":"2021-11-12T07:57:23","date_gmt":"2021-11-12T07:57:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/davidkaff\/?p=116"},"modified":"2021-11-12T07:57:25","modified_gmt":"2021-11-12T07:57:25","slug":"firebase-what-is-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/davidkaff\/2021\/11\/12\/firebase-what-is-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Firebase: What is it? Is it easy to use?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I am writing this week about\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/firebase.google.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Google&#8217;s Firebase<\/a>.\u00a0Firebase is a megalithic cloud service for mobile apps that I have been researching for our Capstone Project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Google Firebase provides a slew of services including data-hosting, user authentication, A\/B feature testing and other remote configurations, cloud functions to run logic server-side, messaging infrastructure, and a ton more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>I have used\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/firebase.google.com\/products\/firestore\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Firestore<\/a>\u00a0(branding for NoSQL data-hosting) and it was very easy to integrate with my test Flutter app. There seems to be good documentation for all of the services that are offered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:90px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Is it better than alternatives?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Similar to my discussion of VS Code last week, I really am only confident in Firebase as an option for Flutter because it is easily integrated into development.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>After setting up the Firebase for both iOS and Android, all of the data passed to and from the Firestore database can be done using the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pub.dev\/packages\/firebase_core\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">cloud_firestore<\/a>\u00a0Flutter pub package. This allows developers to focus on building great apps instead of spreading their efforts over app development and datanase setup and management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Another strong plus for Firebase is the <a href=\"https:\/\/firebase.flutter.dev\/docs\/auth\/overview\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">user authentication<\/a>. We are considering using this for our project because it is a plug-and-play solution for signing in users the way they want: with a traditional email and password or with &#8220;federated&#8221; sign-ins (Google, Apple ID, Facebook, etc).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:90px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Will you be using it?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>We do plan to use Firebase in our project due to the ease of use and nil development costs (only charging for data at scale). Since we are already inside the Google development ecosystem because we are making a Flutter app, it is the natural choice, which I&#8217;m sure is part of the motivation for Google\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/flutter.dev\/docs\/resources\/faq#what-is-flutter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">creating and supporting Flutter at no cost to developers<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator is-style-dots\" \/>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am writing this week about\u00a0Google&#8217;s Firebase.\u00a0Firebase is a megalithic cloud service for mobile apps that I have been researching for our Capstone Project. Google Firebase provides a slew of services including data-hosting, user authentication, A\/B feature testing and other remote configurations, cloud functions to run logic server-side, messaging infrastructure, and a ton more. I&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/davidkaff\/2021\/11\/12\/firebase-what-is-it\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Firebase: What is it? Is it easy to use?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11555,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oregon-state-capstone-blog","entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Firebase: What is it? Is it easy to use? - David Kaff<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/davidkaff\/2021\/11\/12\/firebase-what-is-it\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Firebase: What is it? Is it easy to use? - David Kaff\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I am writing this week about\u00a0Google&#8217;s Firebase.\u00a0Firebase is a megalithic cloud service for mobile apps that I have been researching for our Capstone Project. Google Firebase provides a slew of services including data-hosting, user authentication, A\/B feature testing and other remote configurations, cloud functions to run logic server-side, messaging infrastructure, and a ton more. I&hellip; Continue reading Firebase: What is it? 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