Can i use Firebase Emulators (Firestore, Functions) to serve them permanently on example VPS server?
Hosting + storage will be apache and from for example #angularfire I will call firestore and functions
Is this possible or i must pay for use functions :c
#iAmPoor
I won't say that it's impossible to use the emulator in this way, but I strongly recommend against it. The emulator was only meant to be used during development and testing on your local machine before pushing code to production. It's not meant to run persistently. You could run into problems if you try to use it this way, since it's not tested to work like this.
You should know that Firebase and Google Cloud products have a free tier where you don't pay anything at all unless you exceed the free limits. I suggest reviewing the billing structure to find out what you actually get for free per month. I think it's quite generous.
As Doug said it is not verified to be used as such but I have tested an on-premises solution this way (no internet, about 100 IoT clients on LAN). Hosting server handles load well. The storage emulator works fine for small data sizes. The max time I know it ran without a problem is about 3 months.
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I don't know if my app will work in China and I don't know how to test it. I had read somewhere that there's a firebase Chinese domain .cn in operation. Is there a possibility to transfer the current project to the Chinese domain and make it work, if it doesn't already?
If I create a new project and select the Chinese servers for my firebase services then will it have any other adverse consequences for the rest of the world? This solution would literally force all the developers to have the firebase servers located in China, just so they don't miss out out on their Chinese user base, which I assume could be an issue to some.
I might not have the best ideas but any suggestion and a workaround would be appreciated.
There isn't a simple way to do that. Indeed, trying to set the servers there might a be way, but it's not a guarantee, since China Firewalls are constantly changing. You can try some onlines tools as this one here to verify if your domain is blocked, by adding the URL of your application.
Besides that, the best option is the one clarified in this other post here. You would create an API in Heroku and make the data and calls from Firebase go over this API, so it would make the connection. Another option you may try is using a proxy server - as very well explained in the article Firebase: Accessing Firestore and Firebase through a proxy server - so it gets complied and it's possible to be used in China.
The usage of VPN is not a very good option, as not of them work in China and the ones that work can easily vary, also, this could impact the usability, since it might affect performance and usage for the users there.
To summarize, there isn't a specific and fully correct answer to using Firestore in China, due to the fact that updates and changes on their rules are regular, but these are some alternatives that you can give it a try. It's more about trying the one that would be less damaging for your use case.
Let me know if the information helped you!
Might be helpful for someone...
There is a Firebase alternative for China - Huawei Mobile Services. It contains services like Auth Service, Cloud Functions, Cloud DB, Crash, Push Kit, Ad Kit, and many more...
I'm using firestore for a project in a developing country with intermittent internet access. The internet may go down for up to a day. The client has other systems that use an onsite instance (ie a server they have that runs SQLServer) - that way the systems are still operational if the internet access goes down.
Is it possible to set up Firestore similarly - so that apps that use Firestore can still access it without internet access? If not, what could be a recommended workaround?
No. Cloud Firestore is only available as a cloud-hosted database. There are no "on prem" solutions to run it outside of Google's cloud.
Firebase provides a local emulator, but that's only suitable for running local tests.
Please take a look at this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDvdAFP6OhQ
Firestore is not designed to work as a standalone database. However, it's designed to withstand longer periods of downtime, hours and even days. But if it's days - you should already consider a different solution.
In your case, I suspect what you'd like to have various clients synchronized even if the Internet is down. This will not work in Firestore as each client would have its own copy of the cache. Thus I wouldn't recommend using Firestore in your scenario.
I am using firebase functions for an Uberlike product. I can't get expected performance. Specially it takes a long time to load data from realtime-db. Up to 2-3 seconds for a read.
It's may be due to called start, which is discussed here. => Why is Cloud Functions for Firebase taking 25 seconds?
So I decided to move the functionality of these functions to a VM instance. Using firebase onWrite and admin SDK, a similar functionality can be achieved on a virtual machine.
Is it okay to do so? Will I get any scalability issue?
It is definitely possible to run similar code on your own hardware/VM. In fact that is how many of Firebase's own back-end processes ran, before Cloud Functions was available.
What you'll miss is the auto-scaling of Cloud Functions though. Your machine/VM will always be running, and has a limited capacity (how much it can handle). Unlike Firebase, it has a fixed capacity.
Cloud Functions on the other hand, scaled down to 0 when there are no request, and scales up to meet demand as needed. Whether that is needed for your use-case, only you can determine.
What costs are involved with developing and/or releasing a Google Assistant App?
eg: Can you develop an app using DialogFlow and a backend (say Firebase) without having to pay while you learn?
First of all - you don't need to use Dialogflow or Firebase to develop your action. Both are suggested, but neither are required. You can use any NLP you want, or none at all if you use the Actions SDK (but you want an NLP). You can use any backend at all, including running it off your local machine and tunneling to it via ngrok, but you don't want to do that for production.
But, during development (and even during a light deployment before your action becomes massively popular and a stand-out hit), you have lots of solutions that will be free.
Dialogflow is free for use with the Google Assistant. Period. There is an Enterprise edition which offers additional services and support for a cost, but you won't need them. There are restrictions, but you won't bump into them until you hit 3 requests per second - which you shouldn't during development.
Firebase's free tier (the Spark Plan) is good for very simple experimentation, but once you start doing network calls to outside Google's network (if you are trying to call the network API for other services), you will be blocked. No worries! The "Blaze Plan" paid tier does require a way to bill you, but they don't start billing you until you get quite a bit of usage: 2 million function calls / month and similarly scaled usage of CPU, memory, and network. So even the "Blaze Plan" will be free during development (and for basic usage).
Updated, December 2020
Things have changed a bit since the original answer was posted, but the underlying basics remain true - there is no charge to develop for Actions on Google.
Dialogflow now has an "Essentials" edition and a more advanced "CX" edition. While you can still use both to build Actions, they're not really intended for this purpose anymore.
Instead, Google has included the Actions Builder into the Actions Console to handle the NLP work. The Actions SDK works with this, but can also just pass along all the STT information to your webhook. Both are also free to use.
Dialogflow is for free if you don't use it as an enterprise:
https://dialogflow.com/pricing/
And Firebase free tier should be enough if you not using firebase
already for other projects. enter link description here
But of course you have to calculate your own time so in case of the
spent time probably not.
For everything else yes it is, as long as you not using it already somewhere. You can for development also host your server local and use an ngrok tunnel as sever address for Dialogflow.
As an addition to shortQuestion's answer:
The free plan in Firebase should be enough if you're just using it for learning and developing apps for personal use. If you want to go a bit further you'll need to upgrade the plan.
You can sign up with a free trial for actions on Google to get 300$ of credits during a 12 month period which would be more than enough to do anything you want.
The costs of Firebase/Actions on Google on a higher plan aren't anything to worry about though, you'd be talking about a few cent per multiple hundred thousand requests.
In other words, what part of Google Cloud Endpoints is not in the SDK?
I've seen several people saying that simply running their application elsewhere doesn't work. For exaple, see: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/appscale_community/endpoints/appscale_community/BFagV00RUcU/taaAoV5mxNEJ
What part of Google Cloud Endpoints is not in the SDK? Are there any initiatives going to try to implement that?
Endpoints has two components. The first is the SDK, and the second is the API proxy. In theory, both could work on other platforms, but the reality is that you would need to really understand the finer details of the interaction between the two to execute it. You could also in theory try to use the dev server servlets to run on other platforms. I make no guarantees about the robustness of either solution.