Introduction
I have read more and more articles in recent months saying that Firebase is too expensive. While that might be true for some cases, it is not for others. In this article, I want to present 4 Firebase services that are always free.
No credit card information, no bank accounts required, no usage limits. All you need is a Firebase account and a Firebase project to get started.
Flutter ❤️ Firebase
Get started with Firebase and learn how to use it in your Flutter apps. My detailed ebook delivers you everything you need to know! Flutter and Firebase are a perfect match!
Firebase Remote Config
Want to change your app without pushing a new version?
Firebase Remote Config can do that for you. Simply put, you define placeholders in your app code, call the Remote Config server, and replace the placeholders with the actual values.
Common use cases are percentage rollout mechanisms for features, promotion banners, or optimizing ad impression revenue. All this is possible with a simple parameter configuration in the web UI.
Quick links for you:
Have a look at my in-depth article for Flutter developers:
Firebase Crashlytics
Your users complain about frequent app crashes?
Sounds like Firebase Crashlytics could help you with that. It’s a crash reporting service for mobile apps that collects information and logs, categorizes them, and groups them together in a clean UI.
You’ll know exactly what happened right before the crash and how many of your users are affected. You will be back in 5 star review regions in no time when using this tool!
Here is a tutorial for Flutter developers:
Firebase Analytics
Firebase Analytics is the gold standard when it comes to measure anything in your app for free. Select from hundreds of distinct events or define your own to track exactly what you need.
Learn what features are useful, which screens are avoided, where users cancel the purchasing process, what countries are important, and which age groups your users are part of.
You can get the same power of Google Analytics for websites in your mobile apps!
More information:
Firebase App Distribution
With Firebase App Distribution, you don’t have to deal with Google Play Console or Apple TestFlight anymore to distribute app versions to your testers.
The service unifies both platforms in a single user interface. Manage and collect feedback from all your testers and app versions in one place, integrate it in your CI/CD pipelines, and automate the entire process with the Firebase CLI or fastlane.
Once you’ve set it up, it will save you many hourse of manual labor!
Here are some links to get you started:
- Manage test users
- Collect feedback from testers
- Automate app distribution (Android, iOS)
Conclusion
Yes, Firebase can cost some serious money if done wrong. But to say that Firebase is always costly is just a myth. In this article, you learned about 4 Firebase services that are always free. They are the backbone of many enterprise and private projects and have proven their stability and usefulness over years.
Go check them out. They will make your life easier!
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