I have been working on a web app and I am now looking into hosting said app. This app is a client-side app for right now meaning that all of the work is being done on the clients device and it has no backend other than the web server giving the site to the user for the first time.
I was looking into Heroku but that seems expensive for my app. Then I looked into Firebase Hosting and it looks good but requires the site to have static content. For now I'm pretty sure my app fits that criteria but in the future I would like to have users sign up for accounts and then store the info they give for the app data in a database. Would do database calls to a firebase database make the app non-static/dynamic anymore?
I know I could use Digital Ocean or another server provider but I want to be able to have scaling done for me so I can just focus on the app and not the containers themselves.
It sounds like you might want to build your app with Firebase Authentication for user logins, store data in Firebase Realtime Database, and host all the content on Firebase Hosting. You could probably write the code entirely in JavaScript to run in the browser, but if you did need to write some code on the backend, you could use Cloud Functions for Firebase.
Related
What is Firebase Hosting for? Examples? I'm not clear on what it does with respect to hosting a website or server or both....
My understanding of hosting is that one would enlist something like Bluehost or GoDaddy to host a webpage, which they would then upload the website files via an FTP. I see it appears Firebase Hosting may serve a similar purpose and you can add your own domain name like this.
I also understand that websites sometimes require a separate server to do things like: processing requests while keeping secret keys hidden, or rendering a unique webpage server-side and sending a static page to the user. I've used Firebase Realtime Database for non-secure data storage, but I would like to be able to use the hosting as well for serving private user-specific content without exposing keys.
I just did a tutorial to create what seemed like a web app that one would query from another webpage, but I wasn't able to deploy and try it out because of the pay-wall.
Can Firebase Hosting be my secondary server that processes private requests to a database or is it only for hosting a user-facing webpage, or both?
I am new to programming and would appreciate hearing if it seems like I am misunderstanding something within my question. Recommended resources for further learning on this subject are greatly appreciated!
Thank you.
Hosting a static web site
Firebase Hosting on its own is a service for hosting static assets. So in your scenario HTML + CSS + Images + JavaScript files that are included in them. None of this content is executed, or in any other way interpreted, on the Firebase servers. You upload (in Firebase terms "deploy") the files to Firebase, which then distributes then to its global CDN edges, and when your site is visited, the content it served from that CDN.
In the Firebase documentation on what can you host this is referred to as:
Host your single-page web apps, marketing websites, and static and dynamic assets
Hosting a static web site with dynamic content
You can use Firebase with many of the other back-end services to add dynamic functionality to your static web site. For example, you can call Realtime Database from your client-side JavaScript code, and display dynamic data in your static web app that way. Firestore would be similar, which you could use in place of Realtime Database. Similarly you can use Firebase to connect to Cloud Storage, for storing of files, for example to allow your users to upload and view images.
And then you'll typically want to secure access to all this dynamic content. At that point, you use Firebase Authentication to allow your users to sign in, and when you'll use Firebase's server-side security rules, which are available for Realtime Database, Cloud Firestore and Cloud Storage. These rules determine what data or files the users can access.
The Firebase documentation covers this in the section on deep integrations with other Firebase products.
Firebase Hosting works out-of-the-box with Firebase services, including Cloud Functions, Authentication, Realtime Database, Cloud Firestore, and Cloud Messaging. You can build powerful microservices and web apps using these complementary Firebase services.
Adding dynamic server-side pieces to web site
You can integrate Firebase Hosting with Google Cloud Functions and Cloud Run to build dynamic web sites. In those scenarios, you host the server-side code on Cloud Run or Cloud Functions, and set Firebase Hosting up to redirect certain URLs to specific end points in your server-side code.
In the Firebase documentation on what can you host this is referred to as:
Pair Firebase Hosting with Cloud Functions to build microservices using the Express.js framework. This pairing allows you to host your microservices and APIs on Firebase.
We are developing a mobile application with a Firebase backend for a client organization. They want their organization's data hidden from the developer team. The firebase database is used by a flutter mobile application.
My current idea is to develop the app in an entirely different google account, and to swap configuration to clients google account when deploying, and deploy the cloud functions under their supervision. But there must be a easier way!
Can you guys suggest an elegant way to achieve this data privacy requirement of the clients?
What you want here is to utilize IAM roles in the project to restrict access. The client can own the project and grant limited access to the developers through roles that can be assigned.
They could give permission to deploy cloud functions without being able to read the entire Firestore database, as an example.
I'd recommend creating a second staging or "non-production" project that developers have full access to as well, since developing when you can't use the Firestore data viewer or have admin read access can be very difficult.
I am looking to make an app that would have its Backend on another service like AWS or some other. This app would be having many features and functionalities.
But for chat feature, I am exploring options and wondering that would I be able to integrate Firebase in my app.
I have read about Firebase Functions to add more functionality at the backend and also the installation of Firebase Admin to servers.
But still I am not convinced about their capabilities and exactly what all I can do with them.
It would be great if someone who has experience with Firebase help me out figuring if going with it is the best case for me or is there something else I should look into.
So first you can't use Firebase in combination with AWS or Azure etc. Firebase is based on Google Cloud and is the interface between the mobile client (the running app on the client's smartphone) and the backend (your Firebase project).
What I use is, for example, Firebase Cloud Messaging, to simply notify one or multiple users by trigger an HTTP Request from my own web server.
I also made some apps to store the data in FireStore or in the Realtime-Database, so that I don't have to set up a whole new infrastructure. And this is basically the goal of Firebase that you can simply start with your app, without carrying about that.
So what I've heard about Firebase is that you currently cannot install Firebase on a server of your choice and you have to use Google Cloud.
Hopefully, you can do something with my answer. If you have further questions feel free to ask them.
Is it possible to set up Firebase to allow Auth/DB access into a common/shared database instance - where that instance is setup to be a centralized storage location for some 3rd party service?
For example, let's say there's an analytics service called StackOverflowAnalytics.com .. and so anyone who signs up for that service, can add tracking to their app with some secret user key. And then all the tracking for that Key is pushed to the same Firebase DB instance. And then the user can login via Firebase auth and the rules will restrict that they can only access the node for their Key.
I'm working on a 3rd party analytics client for Android - along the lines https://mint.splunk.com - where I would like to provide users a small Java/Android library they can add to their Android project, and this will help them track different data points while their app is running. The data is made accessible by saving it to the cloud from the device.
I am currently using Firebase, but it seems in order for the Firebase Auth & DB of a given Firebase instance to be accessible - the "specific app signing key" (package name/etc combo) needs to be set in the console for that Firebase instance.
It seems sharing across across unknown apps is not possible on Firebase. And that if I want to support something like that with Firebase (and not have to go to another cloud storage option), then I need to set up some proxy REST client .. like in Java or PHP .. that can serve as a centralized access point to that Firebase instance. Just wanted to check with other folks first in case this has been encountered and perhaps there are best practices already established around this particular case. Thanks
Firebase client libraries are generally not meant to be repackaged for use in other libraries. They're meant to be used at the app level.
A unique SHA-1 key is required on Android for Authentication to work with a particular app identified by package name. This requirement will definitely become a problem for you if you want this to work with arbitrary apps, since you would have to manually enter one for each app that wants to integrate.
As far as I know it's not possible to do what you want without creating a proxy, as you mentioned. I assume that firebase has some app validation that make unfeasible to share the Auth/DB.
Maybe a solution for you is to make a proxy too to access data:
"It looks like in order to access Firebase Analytics data, you export it to BigQuery. This is working for me and is automated."
Can we implement Firebase for an android app, where I am registering user using Mobile number (Similar to Whatsapp). Users will be sent a code by server which is entered by user in android app to validate the user mobile number and registering him on the server.
Question : Can I use the above method in conjunction with Firebase Auth?
I was earlier going to use MongoDB for my project, but since Firebase has SYNC capabilities, it will be a better choice for storing data. Another good reason is as below:
If a client loses its network connection, your app will continue
functioning correctly.
Every client connected to a Firebase database maintains its own
internal version of any active data. When data is written, it's
written to this local version first. The Firebase client then
synchronizes that data with the remote database servers and with other
clients on a "best-effort" basis.
Very NEW to Firebase, just came to know about firebase (through Google 2016 IO).
https://firebase.google.com/docs/database/android/save-data
Firebase hosting is not for server side processing.
It stores static assets of your website as a world-class high availability CDN. So websites hosted here loads very fast. Even in high-availability scenarios.
So you have to do processing at other server which then connects with firebase and stores userinfo in realtime database.
Firebase has put limits on userinfo to be placed in directly for users auth dashboard.
For detailed userinfo, firebase realtime db is the way to go(from your processing backend to firebase realtime db).
Further Reading: What kind of web applications are Firebase not ideal for?