Hello there, if you have the time I'd like to talk to you about Firebase…

I had heard Firebase mentioned around the place; during various seminars and discussions. When my partner began using it to host a few of his apps I could see how powerful and feature-rich it was.

So what is it? Well, at it’s core Firebase is cloud based, real-time backend as a service. It enables users to store data in real time across platforms. It has recently had a rather large makeover by Google, which acquired it in 2014, and they are now offering a lot of awesome tools focused around mobile app development.

_Image property of Google _

One of the great things about Firebase is it allows users to set up rather complicated services such as user profiles with secure password and email authentication. Previously this would have been a large task for a web dev newbie but with Firebase it’s very straightforward. I think anyone who is looking at creating a basic application that requires user accounts should use Firebase, it has generous plans for hobbyists and it’s secure and fast.

Firebase also offers reliable and fast hosting for static your static resources. With a few simple commands you can deploy your web app and have it available on the firebaseapp.com subdomain. :D Cool beans!

The last thing I wanted to mention was a couple of the AWESOME open source applications that are using Firebase, one of which I used to make my latest and greatest project. The first one, and the one I am the most familiar with is Firepad. I used Firepad when building my real-time collaborative front-end editor (that’s a mouthful :/) I plan to write a blog about this project in a later post, but for now I will say Firepad made it a lot easier! I was able to get an real-time editor working in a very short time and just like that half the work was done. Like most things I write, I spent 80% my time on the CSS.

The second one is called Firechat, I have yet to look into this in depth as I don’t have any ideas around a chat application atm. However, I can see that It looks to be as simple as Firepad to use and makes the issues around creating at a chat application super easy.

I highly suggest checking Firebase, and the above mentioned services out. It is a really powerful tool that enables people to create some truly neat things. And it makes you feel super smart and cool. Ha