Firebase is a technology developed by Google. In this article, I am going to explore why Firebase is a great technology for ‘Indie Makers’ in 2020
What is Firebase?
Firebase is a great technology developed by Google. It offers lots of capabilities for developers to build mobile and web applications fast and simple. Firebase is an umbrella of products which contains many sub-products. Each sub-products offers unique functionality for the need for an application. The list of products are as follows,
| Technology | Description | Platforms |
|---|---|---|
| Cloud Firestore | Store and sync app data at scale | M + W |
| ML Kit | Machine learning for mobile developers | M |
| Cloud functions | Run mobile backend code without managing servers | M + W |
| Authentication | Authenticate users simply and securely | M + W |
| Hosting | Deliver web app assets with speed and security | W |
| Cloud storage | Store and serve files at Google scale | M + W |
| Realtime database | Store and sync app data in milliseconds | M + W |
| Crashlytics | Prioritize and fix issues with powerful, realtime crash reporting | M |
| Performance monitoring | Gain insight into your app’s performance | M + W |
| Test lab | Test your app on devices hosted by Google | M |
| App distribution | Distribute pre-release versions of your app to your trusted testers | M |
| In-App messaging | Engage active app users with contextual messages | M |
| Google analytics | Get free and unlimited app analytics | M + W |
| Predictions | Smart user segmentation based on predicted behavior | M |
| A/B testing | Optimize your app experience through experimentation | M |
| Cloud messaging | Send targeted messages and notifications | M + W |
| Remote config | Modify your app without deploying a new version | M |
| Dynamic links | Drive growth by using deep links with attribution | M + W |
NOTE: M – Mobile; W – Web Platform
Constraints of Indie Makers
When it comes to Indie makers, there are so many constraints for them to stand on their own. In which, I have listed down some of the important constraints and then we will go through each constraint in detail.
- Budget
- Knowledge to build MVP
- Reach the market
- Scale the business
Budget
Budget is the most important constraint for any Indie maker like me. We need to be very careful about the money which we spent during the early stage. Most people are not taking any steps in their entrepreneurial journey, just having the fear of losing money. Firebase is one of the key technology to save our life. Where we can start using all these services for absolutely free of cost. We don’t need to spend not even a single dollar to build our application. Firebase offers a free plan for makers like us. Their free plan is also reasonable and worth it until reaching a certain level in our business.
Knowledge to build MVP
Firebase provides its technology for all well-known platforms and languages. We don’t even learn any new programming languages to consume their services. For example, if a maker wants to build a web application, they can simply build their application by consuming Firestore, Authentication, Cloud hosting and cloud storage. All these technologies follows the same standard and programming paradigm. Then we can extend our application based on the reach or on our business needs. In another way, if a maker wants to build a mobile application, they can consume Firestore, Authentication, Cloud storage and launch their app.
On top of the basic Firestore technologies, Makers can also extend their consumption by adding additional Firestore capabilities. This is so simple and easy.
Reach the market
The challenging part of the maker lies heavily on ‘Reach to market’. Once makers build our MVP, they need to reach the market and test their application. Google Firebase platform offers many applications to even support indie makers. For example, we can use services like App distribution, A/B testing and Predictions to reach the mass market and try our application.
Scale the business
Google Firebase platform is supported by Google Cloud. So that we can scale our business easily once we grow or interested to extend our business to the next level.
I believe this article would have given some basic understanding of Firebase and various other services offered by Google. Please subscribe to my blog to get more insights into each Firebase services in detail. Bye for now. Thanks for reading!
{ Happy coding }
