Bird vs Firebase

Discover how Bird compares to Firebase, and understand which is right for your use case, based on dimensions such as scalability, pricing, security, and their chat features.

What is Bird?

Bird (formerly MessageBird) is a cloud communications platform that offers SMS, voice, chat, and video capabilities. It focuses on enabling omnichannel communication for businesses, allowing them to connect with customers across various channels seamlessly.

When to use Bird

Pros and cons of Bird

What is Firebase?

Firebase is a cloud-native backend by Google that allows developers to build mobile and web applications. Firebase services include Firebase Realtime data, Firestore database, authentication, and Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM), among others.

When to use Firebase

Pros and cons of Firebase

Compare Bird and Firebase

Let’s compare Bird and Firebase, looking at key elements of their offering such as their scalability, pricing, security and chat feature set.

Disclaimer: This comparison was created based on documentation and resources freely available online about Bird and Firebase. The content was last updated on 16 May 2025 for Bird and on 16 May 2025 for Firebase. Be sure to double-check everything before you make any decisions. If you do find anything incorrect or out of date, then please let us know.

Alternatives to Bird and Firebase

While both Bird and Firebase are worth considering as options for realtime experiences, they aren’t without their limitations. We suggest evaluating them against the following alternatives to make sure you find the right solution for your needs.

Alternatives to Bird

Vonage provides SMS, voice, and video APIs for customizable communication solutions.

Sendbird offers APIs and SDKs for live chat, realtime messaging, push notifications, and calls with WebSocket connections, UI kits, and backend integrations.

Twilio is a platform that provides developers with a suite of communication tools for building messaging infrastructure in their applications.

See more alternatives to Bird

Alternatives to Firebase

Supabase Realtime is a globally distributed real-time server network built on PostgreSQL, enabling developers to build applications with real-time data sync.

Pusher is a first-generation pub/sub messaging service that provides bi-directional hosted APIs for adding realtime features to applications.

OneSignal is a customer engagement platform that offers push notifications, messages, and email sends for businesses to manage communication with their users.

See more alternatives to Firebase

Discover how Bird and Firebase stack up against Ably

Ably is the definitive realtime experience platform of the internet. See how we compare to Bird and Firebase on key dimensions such as core features, pricing, integrations, QoS, performance, and security and compliance.

Ably vs Bird Ably vs Firebase

Try Ably for free to discover the benefits for yourself

Ably has built reliable realtime infrastructure so you don’t have to. On our free plan you benefit from:

6M monthly messages
200 concurrent channels
200 concurrent connections

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	Bird	Firebase	Why this matters
Scalability
Concurrent connections	Number of users that can be supported in a single chat.	Bird Unknown.	Firebase Up to 200,000 concurrent WebSocket connections per database instance. This limit applies per database. To support more concurrent users, you can shard your data across multiple database instances. Read more	Number of users that can be supported in a single chat.
Connections	Number of connections that can be handled across the platform.	Bird Unknown.	Firebase By sharding, you can scale beyond 200,000 concurrent connections. Each additional database instance adds another 200,000 connections. Read more	Number of connections that can be handled across the platform.
Channels / rooms	Number of channels or rooms that can be handled across the platform.	Bird Unlimited.	Firebase Unlimited. Each path with listeners or queries should not exceed 75 million total nodes. Read more	Number of channels or rooms that can be handled across the platform.
Messages	Number of messages that can be handled across the platform.	Bird Unlimited.	Firebase Unlimited. Write operations are subject to rate limits.	Number of messages that can be handled across the platform.
Message throughput	Number of messsages that can be published per second.	Bird Not publicly disclosed.	Firebase ~1,000 writes/sec per database. Read more	Number of messsages that can be published per second.
Data integrity
Guaranteed message delivery	Ensures messages are never lost during transmission, even in the presence of network disruptions.	Bird No	Firebase No	Ensures messages are never lost during transmission, even in the presence of network disruptions.
Guaranteed message ordering	Maintains the sequence of messages as they were sent. This is particularly important in apps where the chronological order of messages is essential for meaningful communication.	Bird No	Firebase No	Maintains the sequence of messages as they were sent. This is particularly important in apps where the chronological order of messages is essential for meaningful communication.
Exactly-once message delivery	Guarantees that each message is processed exactly once, preventing data inconsistencies that can arise from duplicate processing or missing messages.	Bird No	Firebase No	Guarantees that each message is processed exactly once, preventing data inconsistencies that can arise from duplicate processing or missing messages.
Performance & availability
Uptime Guarantee	An uptime guarantee instills confidence in the reliability of the service and protects your business from the negative impacts of downtime.	Bird 99.9% uptime/month for Bird API Voice and Bird Dashboard 99.95% uptime/month for SMS Services Read more	Firebase 99.95%. Read more	An uptime guarantee instills confidence in the reliability of the service and protects your business from the negative impacts of downtime.
Global edge network	By bringing servers (Points of Presence, or PoP) geographically closer to the devices of end users, and routing requests to the nearest PoP, global latency is reduced to a minimum.	Bird No	Firebase Yes Firebase's global CDN (content delivery network) supports a global edge network by integrating with Google Cloud Platform (GCP), with edge PoPs spanning over 180 internet exchanges and over 160 interconnection facilities worldwide. Read more	By bringing servers (Points of Presence, or PoP) geographically closer to the devices of end users, and routing requests to the nearest PoP, global latency is reduced to a minimum.
Multi-region data replication (message durability)	By replicating data across multiple regions, the risk of data loss or downtime is greatly mitigated since if data is lost or a server fails in one region, the information can be retrieved from another.	Bird No	Firebase Partial Firebase supports multi-region data replication, primarily through Cloud Firestore locations, but this is not supported in Firebase Realtime Database. Read more	By replicating data across multiple regions, the risk of data loss or downtime is greatly mitigated since if data is lost or a server fails in one region, the information can be retrieved from another.
No single point of failure or congestion	Having no single point of failure means a system is resilient and can continue to operate even if one part fails. Avoiding a single point of congestion ensures messages flow efficiently across the system and avoids bottlenecks that could lead to performance issues under load.	Bird No	Firebase Yes Firebase's design uses Google Cloud Platform's infrastructure, which implements redundancy and automatic failover features.	Having no single point of failure means a system is resilient and can continue to operate even if one part fails. Avoiding a single point of congestion ensures messages flow efficiently across the system and avoids bottlenecks that could lead to performance issues under load.
Latency	Low latency is crucial for realtime apps as it ensures swift and efficient data transmissions, providing a smoother and more responsive user experience.	Bird Unknown.	Firebase Unknown.	Low latency is crucial for realtime apps as it ensures swift and efficient data transmissions, providing a smoother and more responsive user experience.
Server-side batching	Reduces the overall message count, lowers costs, and mitigates the risk of hitting rate limits during high-throughput scenarios.	Bird No	Firebase Partial Firebase supports server-side batching through transactions and batched writes in Firestore. Read more	Reduces the overall message count, lowers costs, and mitigates the risk of hitting rate limits during high-throughput scenarios.
Connection state recovery	Automatically re-establish failed connections and replay missed messages.	Bird No	Firebase Partial Firebase does not directly support automatic state recovery. The connection state recovery capabilities can be integrated with Firebase Realtime Database and Cloud Firestore, which automatically handle connection issues.	Automatically re-establish failed connections and replay missed messages.
Ecosystem support
Supported realtime protocols	Support for multiple protocols provides the flexibility to choose a protocol that best suits your project’s requirements.	Bird Bird uses SMPP (Short Message Peer-to-Peer) for SMS messaging. Read more	Firebase WebSockets Server-sent events (SSEs)	Support for multiple protocols provides the flexibility to choose a protocol that best suits your project’s requirements.
Supported languages	Supporting multiple languages and platforms offers greater flexibility when building cross-platform realtime apps.	Bird PHP Ruby Go Python C# Java NodeJS Read more	Firebase JavaScript TypeScript Java Swift Objective-C Kotlin C++ Go Python Flutter Node.js Ruby C#	Supporting multiple languages and platforms offers greater flexibility when building cross-platform realtime apps.
Chat room types
Multi-type chat support (group, DM, supergroups)	Enables chat experiences to be tailored to various user needs, from one-on-one to large, scalable group discussions.	Bird Bird does not natively support chat rooms as part of its messaging API.	Firebase Firebase does not have built-in support for specific chat room types. Instead, Firebase provides backend tools such as Realtime Database, Firestore, and Firebase Authentication that allow you to implement chat rooms.	Enables chat experiences to be tailored to various user needs, from one-on-one to large, scalable group discussions.
Chat room management
Presence	Maintaining a view of which users are connected, and their associated metadata, enables their online status to be updated in realtime.	Bird Partial You can integrate your Bird app with Pusher Channels, which supports presence channels to track and display users’ online status in realtime.	Firebase Yes Firebase Realtime Database natively supports presence. Read more	Maintaining a view of which users are connected, and their associated metadata, enables their online status to be updated in realtime.
Occupancy	High-level metrics about the clients currently connected to a channel make it simple to show things such as connected user count, or display which channels are the most popular.	Bird Partial You can integrate your Bird app with Pusher presence channels for occupancy tracking.	Firebase Partial Firebase does not have built-in support for occupancy tracking. However, occupancy tracking functionality can be built on top of the Firebase Realtime Database.	High-level metrics about the clients currently connected to a channel make it simple to show things such as connected user count, or display which channels are the most popular.
Typing indicators	Show when others are typing in a chat room, enhancing realtime communication flow.	Bird No	Firebase Partial Firebase does not have built-in support for typing indicators. However, you can implement this feature using Firestore or Realtime Database.	Show when others are typing in a chat room, enhancing realtime communication flow.
Room reactions	Customize the chat environment with reactions and other shared room states.	Bird No	Firebase Partial Firebase does not have built-in support for room reactions or arbitrary room state management specifically for chat applications, but you can integrate Firestore or Realtime Database for building out room reactions.	Customize the chat environment with reactions and other shared room states.
Chat message attributes
Message edits and deletes	Allow users to modify or remove messages.	Bird No	Firebase Partial Firebase does not have built-in message delete or edit functionality for chat applications. However, it provides flexible database services, such as Firestore, Realtime Database, and cloud functions to implement these features.	Allow users to modify or remove messages.
Message reactions & emoticons	Boost engagement by enabling users to quickly express emotions or feedback on messages.	Bird No	Firebase Partial Firebase does not have built-in support for message reactions or emoticons in chat applications. However, it offers tools like Firebase Firestore or Realtime Database to do that with some custom development.	Boost engagement by enabling users to quickly express emotions or feedback on messages.
Rich text support	Enhance messages with rich text formatting in chat.	Bird No	Firebase No Firebase itself does not provide dedicated tools specifically for rich text formatting. You can leverage various third-party libraries and Firebase's existing tools to implement rich text support in your application. Otherwise, you can store rich text data (like markdown), and implement formatting on the client side. Read more	Enhance messages with rich text formatting in chat.
Media attachments	Support for sharing images, videos, and files in chat.	Bird Yes Bird's File Storage API enables its Conversations API to send messages with files. Bird also has MMS API that enables you to send and receive MMS messages that include multimedia content but only within the US and Canada. Read more	Firebase Partial Firebase supports media attachments, but it doesn't have built-in features specifically for handling media uploads in chat applications. You can leverage its Firebase Cloud Storage with Firestore or Realtime Database.	Support for sharing images, videos, and files in chat.
Chat application and user state
In-app notifications	Notify users of important events from other chat rooms without them leaving the current chat, keeping them engaged and informed.	Bird No	Firebase Yes Firebase supports in-app notifications, primarily through its Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) service.	Notify users of important events from other chat rooms without them leaving the current chat, keeping them engaged and informed.
Role-based permissions	Control user roles and permissions to ensure proper access and moderation.	Bird Yes Bird uses Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to ensure that only authorized individuals can access critical systems and information. Read more	Firebase Yes Firebase supports role-based access control through the Firebase Admin SDK, Firebase IAM, and Cloud Firestore. Read more	Control user roles and permissions to ensure proper access and moderation.
UI kit	Customizable UI elements for a seamless chat integration.	Bird No	Firebase No Firebase itself does not offer a built-in UI Kit specifically for chat applications.	Customizable UI elements for a seamless chat integration.
Storage and history
Synchronous - automated moderation	Detect and manage harmful content automatically, before the message is broadcast to participants.	Bird No	Firebase Partial Yes but not natively supported. Requires custom implementation using approval flags and client-side filtering. Read more	Detect and manage harmful content automatically, before the message is broadcast to participants.