Why We're Moving on from Firebase

This page summarizes the projects mentioned and recommended in the original post on news.ycombinator.com

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  • Appwrite - The open-source backend cloud platform
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  • supabase

    The open source Firebase alternative.

    [Firebase founder]

    I no longer work at Firebase / Google, but two points:

    1. There may be issues with the GCP integrations & UX/DX, but GCP integration is good for many customers and necessary for the future of the business.

    One of the common failure modes for the 2011-2014 crop of Backend-as-a-Service offerings was their inability to technically support large customers. The economics of developer tooling are a super-power-law. So, if you hope to pay your employees you'll need to grow with your biggest customers.

    Eventually, as they become TheNextBigThing, your biggest customers end up wanting the bells and whistles that only a Big Cloud Platform provide.

    This was a part of the reason we chose to join Google, and why the Firebase team really really really pushed hard to integrate with GCP at a project, billing, and product level (philosophy: Firebase exposed the product from the client, GCP from the server) despite all the organizational/political overhead.

    2. I'm excited to see the next-gen Firebases do well. It has been 10 years since we launched and there are now some great innovations in the space. I like the way Supabase (https://supabase.com/) has exposed Postgres and InstantDB (https://www.instantdb.com) graphdb+realtime is really promising.

  • pocketbase

    Open Source realtime backend in 1 file

    I've been playing with Pocketbase which uses SQLite:

    https://pocketbase.io/

  • Appwrite

    Appwrite - The open-source backend cloud platform. Add Auth, Databases, Functions, and Storage to your product and build any application at any scale while using your preferred coding languages and tools.

  • Directus

    The Modern Data Stack 🐰 — Directus is an instant REST+GraphQL API and intuitive no-code data collaboration app for any SQL database.

    I have to also mention https://directus.io/ here. Coming from Strapi, Feathers.js and Supabase i have to admit it is the closest competitor to Supabase i know. There are things Supabase is doing better but the Admin Interface and the Customization Capabilities of Directus are just unmatched.

  • SQLDelight

    SQLDelight - Generates typesafe Kotlin APIs from SQL

    SQLDelight had neat built in support for this

    https://cashapp.github.io/sqldelight/

  • thin-backend

    🔥 Thin Backend is a Blazing Fast, Universal Web App Backend for Making Realtime Single Page Apps

    Check out thin.dev https://thin.dev/ It uses SQL DDL statements literally as the building blocks for everything.

  • sst

    Build modern full-stack applications on AWS

  • Appwrite

    Build like a team of hundreds_

    I've found appwrite to be a potential contender for db + auth.

    https://appwrite.io

  • Onboard AI

    Learn any GitHub repo in 59 seconds. Onboard AI learns any GitHub repo in minutes and lets you chat with it to locate functionality, understand different parts, and generate new code. Use it for free at www.getonboard.dev.

  • wundergraph

    WunderGraph is a Backend for Frontend Framework to optimize frontend, fullstack and backend developer workflows through API Composition.

    I'm the founder of WunderGraph (https://wundergraph.com) and I'd like to mention it as an open source alternative as well.

    What makes WunderGraph different is the focus on integrations. You can easily integrate internal and 3rd party APIs, and choose your own client. We generate code e.g. using swr, so you can build on top of existing ecosystems.

    We're also currently building a cloud version, which uses fly.io machines to be able to scale functions to zero and even run a SQLite database that can "sleep". I'd love to hear people's opinion.

    Here's a video of the cloud alpha that'll be launched soon: https://youtu.be/N8DFjh7FjLU

NOTE: The number of mentions on this list indicates mentions on common posts plus user suggested alternatives. Hence, a higher number means a more popular project.

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