I’m seriously considering integrating with Firebase to benefit from their real-time database for in-app messages. However, I’m wondering whether it will impact app performance and take long to load the data.
Has anyone used Firebase? If so, how has it impacted your app’s performance and how long does it take to load data?
I’m curious to this as well. Would
make great for the instant messenger. Currently, I have a workflow set up to delete each “chat thread” every 7 days to save space. But the bubble way can be a bit slow with high volumes at times.
I was thinking about this also but I think since Firebase is a NoSQL database I don’t know if you can connect it Bubble using their built in database connector since it seems to be SQL only. May have to connect it over the firebase REST API which may be a little more work. Sure it can be done but may not be natively supported. Keep us posted on what you find.
You would just have to write calls in bubble via the API Connector to connect to your realtime database. Here is the Firebase REST documentation.
I have only used Firebase for mobile projects. I use the Bubble database when building with Bubble. But from my experience, there shouldn’t be any performance issues. Firebase is extremely fast.
You can also get in contact with the developer of this plugin and ask him.
https://bubble.io/plugin/data-layer-1552810734309x983019165656809500
I believe it can read from Firebase.
Doesn’t bubble already use firebase?
There’s no way Bubble uses Firebase.
Yeah. I believe it’s PostgreSQL on AWS RDS.
Thank you for your input. Are you saying you’ve used Firebase with mobile projects in Bubble before? Also I know Firebase is fast, I’m just questioning how fast the api calls will be.
No, I’m saying I’ve used Firebase for mobile apps written in Swift. Firebase is insanely fast.
To use Firebase and get the benefit of a real-time database you would have to use the Firebase javascript SDK.
But I am also not exactly sure why it would help you with building a chat feature over the bubble database which is already “real time”.
Well it’s because Firebase is much faster. Noticeably faster. Bubble’s “realtime” database is too slow for my liking unfortunately.
Also, please only comment if you have the solution/answer for my question guys…
Yeah I get that.
So unfortunately if you integrate with the REST api you will remove the Real Time part of the real-time database. So you will need to get a developer to build a plugin to that will integrate with the Firebase SDK.
The only issue there is that bubble doesn’t let plugins expose complex data types so getting data out of the plugin and into your app (with enough info for example that you could use it for chat) would be very difficult or not possible.
Thank you for your input, but I’m not asking how it can be done (no offence). In regards to the SDK part, I have a couple private plugins that have been able to successfully pull complex forms of data so that shouldn’t be an issue.
What I’m asking is whether anyone has integrated Firebase with their Bubble app and if so, how it has impacted app performance.
I have done it, and it’s extremely fast.
Go through the web development portion of Firebase to set it up with javascript. They have code for you to copy and paste. 
I recommend looking it up on youtube. Firebase, the company, have really simple and easy tutorial videos.
@jamesbond Why do you say there’s no way Bubble uses Firebase? I could have sworn I read somewhere they did.
NM I just read this https://bubble.io/blog/bubble-feature-release/
Maybe they used to use Firebase before this upgrade. Does that mean the DB is no longer realtime?
Bubble uses PostgreSQL
@ZeroqodeSupport it seems that the authentication plugin for firebase isn’t working properly. I can’t log in.
