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14 Comments

Firebase VS MongoBD

I'm working on a platform that helps people find competent teammates for your side projects but I was wondering which do you guys recommend for the backend, firebase or nodejs and MongoDB and which one cost less to operate

  1. 3

    firebase is crap for complex queries. if you get single data by id it's fine. but forget about any query searches. you should ask yourself DynamoDB or MongoDB imo

    1. 1

      Working with dynamoDB and appsync for two years now on two separate projects, They dont have simple features like count/sum queries(could be worked around with streams but its ridiculous), building table indexes is super unforgiving, and any missuse with queries will result in full table scans which is a great way to empty your wallet

  2. 2

    To more easily query a Mongodb database I have built mongoke (https://github.com/remorses/mongoke), it exposes your database data via a graphql server and supports authorization guards, which means you can use it directly in you web client

  3. 2

    I've been using mlab which is Database-as-a-Service for MongoDB, never had any issues. They provide restful api out-of-the-box as well as connect to the DB. https://mlab.com/plans/pricing/

  4. 2

    I found firebase to eventually use more and more unneeded queries, which MongoDB does not do.
    On the other side, MongoDB gets so pricey so quickly.
    So it really depends on what you are expecting to have as traffic.
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    Pretty sure both offer a calculator, that might be a good way to go about this?
    For me now it's MongoDB because i keep in the free tiers.

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      Is there any particular reason you are not hosting your MongoDB on your own servers?
      I'm debating whether I should use MongoDB Atlas or download the Community Server together with my backend application.

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        Why go through the hassle for me... not really interested in setting up servers, maintaining them so atlas works perfectly for me :P

        1. 1

          Understood (:
          How long do you think the free tier will live up to your requirements? Because I agree that Atlas seems a little pricey.

          1. 1

            Not sure, so far it's been 3 months and the app grew quite massive.
            It depends on data inside, so hopefully, my app will include some clean up soon to keep on the free tier haha

  5. 2

    Sounds like the Firebase stack could be a good fit for your app (it oftentimes is for web and mobile apps). You’d get Auth management, DB, Analytics, Transactional email, and more.

  6. 2

    I would suggest Firebase, for its simplicity. I'm pretty sure you're not gonna just need database, maybe a hosting, storage, Push etc. For a solo developer I think Firebase is perfect so you can focus on your product without worry too much about infrastructure.

  7. 2

    If you're not going big in traffic then you can't "outprice" firebase. There is a free plan(spark) up to a certain usage and then you pay-as-you-go(blaze).
    As a ref, we at kitfluence have ~1500 registered users and ~100 daily active ones and pay 0.00 to 0.32 cents a month!

    So, if you get the cheapest hosting ever, unless it's not free, you gonna pay more than for firebase.

    1. 3

      Unless I'm not understanding what you're saying, this isn't strictly true. MongoDB Atlas has a free tier as well: https://docs.atlas.mongodb.com/tutorial/deploy-free-tier-cluster/

      1. 2

        That is very true, my bad, must have missed that!
        So, basically on server-side one is good to go with both solution, firebase always you to host your frontend also for free. Maybe that does the trick.

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