Can I run Firebase Functions locally? - firebase

Question

Is it possible to use firebase-functions from my laptop? If not, is firebase-admin the only option remaining?
Here are some examples:
How can I rent and use my own servers for cloud functions?
Listen only to additions to a cloud firestore collection?
Does Firebase Admin SDK perform any caching?
I am able to make an index.js file on my laptop, npm install firebase-admin module, link to my Firestore database and make changes to data just fine, using admin-credentials. When I also try npm install firebase-functions make use of event-triggers onCreate/onWrite/onUpdate/onDelete, they do not get any updates?
To my understanding, the only way possible to make use of event-triggers is by uploading to cloud functions, since you need Google's infrastructure to use those and you can't use them on your local machine, which you can with firebase-admin package. You can use use the local emulator(?), but it isn't production ready and is not for that use case(?).
So, in order to listen for new events on my Firestore database, only using my laptop (not Google Cloud Functions platform or some other server-hosted option), I have to use .onSnapshot() from firebase-admin npm.
However that module is unable to cache, and you are left querying the whole firestore database, downloading every document.
Is this correct? or is there any way possible to make firebase-functions work from my laptop server using firebase-admin + admin credentials, almost as if I uploaded the file to cloud platform. I don't require this part of data to be on the cloud, so I want to make changes and adjust firestore database from my laptop's Terminal.

Answer 1

You will need to balance scalability and what you want to achieve. One approach uses a Parse Server and a Docker container that works with Express. This method's advantage is its flexibility as to where the parse server can run. You can run this on your laptop or move it to Google Cloud if you need more processing power. However, it is worth noting that the container cannot access all Firebase trigger types.
I am not sure which Operating System you are using, but for Ubuntu, you can install Docker and run Parse Server like this:
# Update the apt package first
$ sudo apt-get update
# install dependencies
$ sudo apt-get install \
apt-transport-https \
ca-certificates \
curl \
gnupg-agent \
software-properties-common \
git
# Add Docker’s GPG key:
$ curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo apt-key add -
# add the Docker repository
$ sudo add-apt-repository \
"deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
$(lsb_release -cs) \
stable"
# Update the apt package again
$ sudo apt-get update
# Install Docker
$ sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io
$ git clone https://github.com/parse-community/parse-server
$ cd parse-server
$ docker build --tag parse-server .
$ docker run --name my-mongo -d mongo
To run the Parse Server:
$ docker run --name my-parse-server -v config-vol:/parse-server/config \
-p 1337:1337 --link my-mongo:mongo -d parse-server --appId APPLICATION_ID \
--masterKey MASTER_KEY --databaseURI mongodb://mongo/test
To link Firebase and the Docker Parse Server, you will need an adapter. The container above is an example, but it should be enough to get you started running from your laptop.