Firebase vs Twilio

	Firebase	Twilio
Time to "hello world" Reviewed by 3+ independent developers Ratings were given based on the average amount of time it takes to sign up to a new account and publish the first message.	3 / 5 5 = <30 min 4 = 30 min - 1 h 3 = 1-2 h 2 = 2-4 h 1 = 4+ h View code example	4 / 5 5 = <30 min 4 = 30 min - 1 h 3 = 1-2 h 2 = 2-4 h 1 = 4+ h View code example
Demos / Tutorials A selection of online demos and tutorials so you can test and see the code in action. Explore Ably's tutorials for our pub/sub messaging platform	Firebase chat app on Android Add Firebase to your Unity project Add Firebase to your Flutter app	Getting started with twilio sync Setting up Twilio Sync on the Client Side Issuing Twilio Sync Tokens View more Twilio demos & tutorials
Documentation Reviewed by 3+ independent developers Explore Ably's documentation for our pub/sub messaging platform	4 / 5 Getting started guides / 5 Information architecture and developer journey / 5 API reference documentation / 5 Readability, design and navigation / 5 Quality of code / 5 Breadth and quality of tutorials / 5 “Good getting started guides, across various languages. The API reference documentation is very detailed, but it lacks any interactivity, which is not great, considering that there's a lot of content. There are a few Codelabs and several multi-feature samples of apps built with Firebase, to showcase functionality, but nothing else that can be regarded as a tutorial. Documentation could be enhanced by including some extra code samples throughout. You can find a lot of samples on GitHub, but you have to do some digging. Including more end-to-end use cases directly in the docs would improve the overall developer experience.”	4.83 / 5 Getting started guides / 5 Information architecture and developer journey / 5 API reference documentation / 5 Readability, design and navigation / 5 Quality of code / 5 Breadth and quality of tutorials / 5 The documentation is quite comprehensive and well detailed, with easy access to code samples while you read through it. There are quickstart tutorials for all the products using different SDKs. However, I feel some developers may get lost while trying to find references or while trying to navigate the various pages, especially around the API reference.
Dashboard or dev console Reviewed by 3+ independent developers Sign up for free and explore Ably's pub/sub messaging platform	4.67 / 5 Ease of use / 5 Stats and reports / 5 Functionality / 5 “The dev console has a wide range of features available, grouped into five main categories: Project Overview (basically your dashboard), Develop - where you handle everything from auth to storage and serverless functions invocation, Quality - where you can view crash reports and latency stats, Analytics - which includes various stats, including GA, and, finally, Grow - where you can do stuff like A/B testing. Navigation is intuitive, but all the functionality available can be a bit too much if you're new to Firebase, and it takes some time to be able to master it all.”	4.33 / 5 Ease of use / 5 Stats and reports / 5 Functionality / 5 The dev console allows you to manage and configure all things Twilio. This includes SMS, Chat, Notify, Sync, Voice, Video, etc. The stats and reports gives its users a general overview of what goes on with their account. This includes API accessed, cost, exact time of access. Besides the general overview, I like the fact that every product has its page where users can view a better breakdown of the activities. I also like that activities are being viewed in monthly ranges. This means you get a detailed report for activities in a month. This way, the report isn’t clumsy or cumbersome.
SDKs Note: Only official SDKs were taken into account. Explore Ably's 25+ SDKs for our pub/sub messaging platform	9 SDKs Including: JavaScript Android Unity	6 SDKs Including: C# Java Node.js
API structure Reviewed by 3+ independent developers	4.50 / 5 API consistency across SDKs / 5 Well structured / 5 Intuitive / 5 Simple / 5 “APIs are well documented (even if it’s in a boring way), and the methods are generally easy to read through and can be understood fairly quickly. APIs are straightforward and easy enough to use; there are however slight inconsistencies across SDKs“.	5 / 5 API consistency across SDKs / 5 Well structured / 5 Intuitive / 5 Simple / 5 The Twilio API is well structured, intuitive, and consistent across all SDKs. The methods are also easy to understand. The documentation provides different pages for each programming language and platforms, making it easy to set up on the backend server for production use with different platforms.

Firebase

Twilio

Getting started and developer experience

Time to "hello world"

Reviewed by 3+ independent developers

Ratings were given based on the average amount of time it takes to sign up to a new account and publish the first message.

3 / 5

5 = <30 min
4 = 30 min - 1 h
3 = 1-2 h
2 = 2-4 h
1 = 4+ h

View code example

4 / 5

5 = <30 min
4 = 30 min - 1 h
3 = 1-2 h
2 = 2-4 h
1 = 4+ h

View code example

Demos / Tutorials

A selection of online demos and tutorials so you can test and see the code in action.

Explore Ably's tutorials for our pub/sub messaging platform

Documentation

Reviewed by 3+ independent developers

Explore Ably's documentation for our pub/sub messaging platform

4 / 5

Getting started guides / 5

Information architecture and developer journey / 5

API reference documentation / 5

Readability, design and navigation / 5

Quality of code / 5

Breadth and quality of tutorials / 5

“Good getting started guides, across various languages. The API reference documentation is very detailed, but it lacks any interactivity, which is not great, considering that there's a lot of content. There are a few Codelabs and several multi-feature samples of apps built with Firebase, to showcase functionality, but nothing else that can be regarded as a tutorial. Documentation could be enhanced by including some extra code samples throughout. You can find a lot of samples on GitHub, but you have to do some digging. Including more end-to-end use cases directly in the docs would improve the overall developer experience.”

4.83 / 5

Getting started guides / 5

Information architecture and developer journey / 5

API reference documentation / 5

Readability, design and navigation / 5

Quality of code / 5

Breadth and quality of tutorials / 5

The documentation is quite comprehensive and well detailed, with easy access to code samples while you read through it. There are quickstart tutorials for all the products using different SDKs. However, I feel some developers may get lost while trying to find references or while trying to navigate the various pages, especially around the API reference.

Dashboard or dev console

Reviewed by 3+ independent developers

4.67 / 5

Ease of use / 5

Stats and reports / 5

Functionality / 5

“The dev console has a wide range of features available, grouped into five main categories: Project Overview (basically your dashboard), Develop - where you handle everything from auth to storage and serverless functions invocation, Quality - where you can view crash reports and latency stats, Analytics - which includes various stats, including GA, and, finally, Grow - where you can do stuff like A/B testing. Navigation is intuitive, but all the functionality available can be a bit too much if you're new to Firebase, and it takes some time to be able to master it all.”

4.33 / 5

Ease of use / 5

Stats and reports / 5

Functionality / 5

The dev console allows you to manage and configure all things Twilio. This includes SMS, Chat, Notify, Sync, Voice, Video, etc. The stats and reports gives its users a general overview of what goes on with their account. This includes API accessed, cost, exact time of access. Besides the general overview, I like the fact that every product has its page where users can view a better breakdown of the activities. I also like that activities are being viewed in monthly ranges. This means you get a detailed report for activities in a month. This way, the report isn’t clumsy or cumbersome.

SDKs

Note: Only official SDKs were taken into account.

Explore Ably's 25+ SDKs for our pub/sub messaging platform

9 SDKs

Including:

JavaScript
Android
Unity

6 SDKs

Including:

C#
Java
Node.js

API structure

Reviewed by 3+ independent developers

4.50 / 5

API consistency across SDKs / 5

Well structured / 5

Intuitive / 5

Simple / 5

“APIs are well documented (even if it’s in a boring way), and the methods are generally easy to read through and can be understood fairly quickly. APIs are straightforward and easy enough to use; there are however slight inconsistencies across SDKs“.

5 / 5

API consistency across SDKs / 5

Well structured / 5

Intuitive / 5

Simple / 5

The Twilio API is well structured, intuitive, and consistent across all SDKs. The methods are also easy to understand. The documentation provides different pages for each programming language and platforms, making it easy to set up on the backend server for production use with different platforms.

Firebase	Twilio
// SUBSCRIBE CLIENT APP TO A TOPIC // These registration tokens come from the client FCM SDKs. var registrationTokens = [ 'YOUR_REGISTRATION_TOKEN_1', // ... 'YOUR_REGISTRATION_TOKEN_n' ]; // Subscribe devices to the topic admin.messaging().subscribeToTopic(registrationTokens, topic) .then(function(response) { console.log('Successfully subscribed to topic:', response); }) .catch(function(error) { console.log('Error subscribing to topic:', error); }); // SENDING MESSAGES TO A TOPIC var condition = "'stock-GOOG' in topics \|\| 'industry-tech' in topics"; var message = { notification: { title: '$FooCorp up 1.43% on the day', body: '$FooCorp gained 11.80 points to close at 835.67, up 1.43% on the day.' }, condition: condition }; // Send a message to devices subscribed to the combination of topics admin.messaging().send(message) .then((response) => { console.log('Successfully sent message:', response); }) .catch((error) => { console.log('Error sending message:', error); });	// Obtain a JWT access token: https://www.twilio.com/docs/sync/identity-and-access-tokens var token = '<your-access-token-here>'; var syncClient = new Twilio.Sync.Client(token); // Open a Document by unique name and update its value syncClient.document('MyDocument') .then(function(document) { // Listen to updates on the Document document.on('updated', function(event) { console.log('Received Document update event. New value:', event.value); }); // Update the Document value var newValue = { temperature: 23 }; return document.set(newValue); }) .then(function(updateResult) { console.log('The Document was successfully updated', updateResult) }) .catch(function(error) { console.error('Unexpected error', error) });

Firebase

Twilio

"Hello world" code example

// SUBSCRIBE CLIENT APP TO A TOPIC 
// These registration tokens come from the client FCM SDKs.
var registrationTokens = [
  'YOUR_REGISTRATION_TOKEN_1',
  // ...
  'YOUR_REGISTRATION_TOKEN_n'
];
 
// Subscribe devices to the topic
admin.messaging().subscribeToTopic(registrationTokens, topic)
  .then(function(response) {
    console.log('Successfully subscribed to topic:', response);
  })
  .catch(function(error) {
    console.log('Error subscribing to topic:', error);
  });
 
// SENDING MESSAGES TO A TOPIC
var condition = "'stock-GOOG' in topics || 'industry-tech' in topics";
 
var message = {
  notification: {
    title: '$FooCorp up 1.43% on the day',
    body: '$FooCorp gained 11.80 points to close at 835.67, up 1.43% on the day.'
  },
  condition: condition
};
 
// Send a message to devices subscribed to the combination of topics
admin.messaging().send(message)
  .then((response) => {
    console.log('Successfully sent message:', response);
  })
  .catch((error) => {
    console.log('Error sending message:', error);
  });

// Obtain a JWT access token: https://www.twilio.com/docs/sync/identity-and-access-tokens
var token = '<your-access-token-here>';
var syncClient = new Twilio.Sync.Client(token);

// Open a Document by unique name and update its value
syncClient.document('MyDocument')
  .then(function(document) {
    // Listen to updates on the Document
    document.on('updated', function(event) {
      console.log('Received Document update event. New value:', event.value);
    });

    // Update the Document value
    var newValue = { temperature: 23 };
    return document.set(newValue);
  })
  .then(function(updateResult) {
    console.log('The Document was successfully updated', updateResult)
  })
  .catch(function(error) {
    console.error('Unexpected error', error)
  });

	Firebase	Twilio
Realtime features
Pub/Sub messaging Pub/Sub is a design pattern that lets any number of publishers (producers) push messages to channels (also known as topics). Multiple subscribers (consumers) can subscribe to a channel to consume published messages. Explore Ably's pub/sub messaging implementation
Message queues A message queue is a form of asynchronous service-to-service communication. Messages are stored on a queue until they are processed. Note that each message is only consumed by one subscriber (consumer). Explore Ably's message queues implementation
Presence Presence enables you to track the online and offline status of devices and end-users in real time and to store their state. Essential for chat apps and multiplayer games. Explore Ably's presence implementation
Message history Message history provides a means to retrieve previously published messages. For this to be possible, message data must be stored (persisted) somewhere. Explore Ably's message history implementation		Limited The maximum message retention duration is 13 months. In October 2020, this was one of three key changes Twilio made in the way it stores message records: 1. Message log history will only be available from the last 13 months via Twilio Console and the Messages API Resource. Messages logs older than 13 months will still be accessible via the Bulk Export API, or the Bulk Export Message Log Archives in Console. 2. All Media Objects (e.g. MMS and WhatsApp message file attachments - pictures, audio, etc.) from Messages older than 13 months will be permanently deleted. 3. Deleting a Message log will also automatically remove any Media objects associated with that message. This applies to all Twilio products.
Connection state recovery (stream resume) In the case of unreliable network conditions, clients may suddenly disconnect.Connection state recovery ensures that when they reconnect, the data stream resumes exactly where it left off. Explore Ably' s connection state recovery implementation
Guaranteed message ordering Ordering ensures that messages are delivered to consumers in the same order that producers publish them. Explore Ably' s guaranteed message ordering implementation
Exactly-once semantics Exactly-once is a system-wide data integrity guarantee that ensures each message is delivered to consumers exactly-once. Explore Ably' s idempotent publishing implementation
Message delta compression Message delta compression enables you to only send the changes from the previous message to subscribers each time there’s an update, instead of the entire message. Useful for use cases where there is a significant degree of similarity between successive messages. Explore Ably' s message delta compression implementation
Native push notifications Native push notifications can be used to deliver messages even when clients are offline. Useful for geolocation updates or news alerts. Explore Ably's push notifications implementation
Webhooks Webhooks provide a mechanism to get messages and other types of events (such as clients entering or leaving channels) pushed to your servers over HTTP. Explore Ably's webhooks implementation
Serverless functions A serverless function is essentially an isolated, single-purpose piece of code that is only executed when it’ triggered by an event. For example, you can use serverless functions to send a welcome message to clients when they become present on chat channels. Note that serverless functions are usually fully managed by cloud vendors. Explore Ably's serverless functions implementation	Limited Can only trigger Cloud Functions for Firebase. Does not support other serverless platforms, such as AWS Lambda or Azure Functions.
Built-in integrations Which popular services & systems are Firebase and Twilio integrated with? Explore Ably's library of integrations	Webhooks Custom IFTTT Zapier Serverless functions AWS Lambda Cloudflare Workers Google Cloud Functions Microsoft Azure Functions Streaming Apache Kafka Apache Pulsar Amazon Kinesis Amazon SQS RabbitMQ AMQP	Webhooks Custom IFTTT Zapier Serverless functions AWS Lambda Cloudflare Workers Google Cloud Functions Microsoft Azure Functions Streaming Apache Kafka Apache Pulsar Amazon Kinesis Amazon SQS RabbitMQ AMQP
Known limits and constraints Find out practical limits, such as the maximum message size, or the maximum number of concurrent connections. Explore the practical limits of the Ably pub/sub messaging platform	The information below applies to Firebase Cloud Messaging: Throughput 240 messages/minute and 5.000 messages/hour to a single device Maximum message size 4KB Maximum number of topics No limit on the total number of topics, but an app instance can be subscribed to no more than 2000 topics. Maximum number of concurrent connections 2.500 connections per project	Publisher throughput Unknown Maximum message size Unknown Maximum number of topics Unknown Maximum number of connections Unknown

Supported development platforms, languages, open protocols and cloud models
Development platforms & operating systems Which popular development platforms and operating systems do Firebase and Twilio support via official SDKs? Explore the development platforms supported by Ably	Android Java / JVM iOS macOS iPadOS tvOS watchOS Mono .NET	Android Java / JVM iOS macOS iPadOS tvOS watchOS Mono .NET
Languages Which popular programming languages do Firebase and Twilio support via offical SDKs? Explore the programming languages supported by Ably	JavaScript Node.js TypeScript Java Objective-C Swift Go PHP Python Ruby Flutter Clojure Scala	JavaScript Node.js TypeScript Java Objective-C Swift Go PHP Python Ruby Flutter Clojure Scala
Open protocols Which popular open protocols do Firebase and Twilio support? Explore the open protocols supported by Ably	WebSocket HTTP AMQP MQTT STOMP SSE Webhooks	WebSocket HTTP AMQP MQTT STOMP SSE Webhooks
Cloud models Which popular cloud models do Firebase and Twilio support?	Self-hosted Cloud-managed Serverless Globally-distributed	Self-hosted Cloud-managed Serverless Globally-distributed

Global and reliable edge service
Edge messaging network with latency-based routing Latency-based routing ensures that clients are always routed to the nearest datacenter and point of presence. Explore Ably's routing mechanism that mitigates network and DNS issues	Limited Edge-optimized, dynamic datacenter selection is available only for the Cloud Firestore component.
Multi-region data replication (message durability) Multi-region data replication (storage) protects against single points of failure and ensures message data durability. Learn how Ably ensures message durability
Uptime SLAs Here’s what the most common SLAs amount to in terms of downtime over a calendar year: 99.999% SLA = 5m 15s downtime per year 99.99% SLA = 52m 35s downtime per year 99.95% SLA = 4h 22m 58s downtime per year 99.9% SLA = 8h 45m 56s downtime per year 99% SLA = 3d 15h 39m 29s downtime per year Source: https://uptime.is/	99.95% for Firebase Hosting and the Realtime Database. 99.99 % if you are using Cloud Firestore in a single-region configuration. 99.999% if you are using Cloud Firestore in a multi-region configuration. Unclear what SLAs (if any) are provided for the rest of the Firebase services.	99.95% uptime 99.99% uptime for Twilio Services 99.99% uptime for SendGrid Services Find out more about Twilio SLAs
Quality of Service What QoS guarantees do Firebase and Twilio provide natively? Explore Ably's availability and uptime guarantees for our pub/sub messaging platform	Multi-region data replication (storage) Exactly-once semantics Guaranteed message ordering Connection state recovery (stream resume)	Multi-region data replication (storage) Exactly-once semantics Guaranteed message ordering Connection state recovery (stream resume)

Global and reliable edge service

Edge messaging network with latency-based routing

Latency-based routing ensures that clients are always routed to the nearest datacenter and point of presence.

Explore Ably's routing mechanism that mitigates network and DNS issues

Limited

Edge-optimized, dynamic datacenter selection is available only for the Cloud Firestore component.

Multi-region data replication (message durability)

Multi-region data replication (storage) protects against single points of failure and ensures message data durability.

Learn how Ably ensures message durability

Uptime SLAs

Here’s what the most common SLAs amount to in terms of downtime over a calendar year:

99.999% SLA = 5m 15s downtime per year

99.99% SLA = 52m 35s downtime per year

99.95% SLA = 4h 22m 58s downtime per year

99.9% SLA = 8h 45m 56s downtime per year

99% SLA = 3d 15h 39m 29s downtime per year

Source: https://uptime.is/

99.95% for Firebase Hosting and the Realtime Database.

99.99 % if you are using Cloud Firestore in a single-region configuration.

99.999% if you are using Cloud Firestore in a multi-region configuration.

Unclear what SLAs (if any) are provided for the rest of the Firebase services.

99.95% uptime

99.99% uptime for Twilio Services

99.99% uptime for SendGrid Services

Find out more about Twilio SLAs

Quality of Service

What QoS guarantees do Firebase and Twilio provide natively?

Explore Ably's availability and uptime guarantees for our pub/sub messaging platform

Multi-region data replication (storage)
Exactly-once semantics
Guaranteed message ordering
Connection state recovery (stream resume)

Multi-region data replication (storage)
Exactly-once semantics
Guaranteed message ordering
Connection state recovery (stream resume)

Security
API key authentication The simplest way to authenticate. Involves using private API keys that you can usually create and edit via a dashboard. Recommended to be used server-side, as private API keys shouldn’t be shared with untrusted parties. Explore Ably's implementation of API key authentication
Token-based authentication Which popular token-based authentication mechanisms do Firebase and Twilio support? Note that token-based authentication is usually the recommended strategy on the client-side as it provides more fine-grained access control and limits the risk of credentials being compromised. Explore Ably's implementation of token-based authentication	Ephemeral tokens JWTs	Ephemeral tokens JWTs
Configurable rules and permissions Which types of configurable rules and permissions do Firebase and Twilio support? Explore Ably's configurable rules and permissions	API keys rules and permissions Operation rules and permissions Admin rights	API keys rules and permissions Operation rules and permissions Admin rights
Message encryption Which types of message encryption do Firebase and Twilio support? Explore Ably's message encryption mechanisms	Encrypted at rest Encrypted in transit Message payload encryption	Encrypted at rest Encrypted in transit Message payload encryption
Formal certifications Which formal certifications are Firebase and Twilio compliant with? Explore Ably's security and compliance for our pub/sub messaging platform	SOC 2 TYPE I SOC 2 Type II HIPAA EU GDPR	SOC 2 TYPE I SOC 2 Type II HIPAA EU GDPR

Pricing & Support
Free package What do the free packages offered by Firebase and Twilio consist of? Explore Ably's free package for our pub/sub messaging platform	The Spark plan includes several products from the Firebase suite that are entirely free to use, such as cloud messaging (FCM) or in-app messaging. The Spark plan also allows for free usage of most of the other products, up to certain limits. Some examples: first 125k/month Cloud Functions invocations free, 10 GB of free storage (hosting), and 1 GiB of free storage in Cloud Firestore.	Not bad On Twilio Sync, your first 200 endpoint-hours for each month are free: “Endpoints are unique devices or browser tabs and are counted once for each wall-clock hour during which they interact with Sync. Each unique endpoint will incur charges of at most $0.01 per calendar day.” Users also get free access to their first 10,000 actions each month: “Actions are defined as incoming requests from your application that read and write data. Resulting webhooks, updates to connected endpoints, and storage are included in the cost of an action.”
Pricing model How are the Firebase and Twilio pricing models calculated? Explore Ably's pricing model for our pub/sub messaging platform	Firebase offers two pricing plans: the Spark plan (free) and the Blaze plan (pay as you go), which is recommended for building apps at scale. Most Firebase products are entirely free to use for both plans, with hard limits on some products for the Spark plan (and some missing features, too). The Blaze plan includes the free usage from the Spark plan and allows access to all Firebase features and products. On top of that, pricing is calculated monthly based on a multitude of factors, such as message ingestion & delivery, document read, write, delete operations, data storage, hosting, or function invocations. For example, Cloud Firestore storage is calculated at $0.18/GiB, and hosting is calculated at $0.026/GB.	Pricing varies on what service you intend to use. Specifically for Twilio Sync, the pay-as-you-go model is employed and pricing depends on the endpoint-hour. Here is the breakdown: Accessing 201 and 12,000 endpoint-hours costs $0.00250/endpoint-hour Once the 12,000 endpoint-hours threshold is crossed, users begin to pay a lesser amount. Between 12,001 and 72,000 users pay $0.00200/endpoint-hour Find out more about Twilio Sync pricing
Enterprise package What benefits do the Firebase and Twilio enterprise packages offer? Explore Ably's enterprise package for our pub/sub messaging platform	The Blaze plan gives access to all Firebase features and products and has enhanced usage limits. Key benefits Google Cloud Platform integration Multiple databases per project (Realtime Database) Unlimited number of tests (you are charged for test time only. In contrast, with the free Spark plan, you are limited to 15 tests per day) Cloud Vision APIs	Twilio offers a Premium Support package. Key benefits Bulk Export Single sign-on Account Insights Public Key Client Validation Find out more about the Twilio enterprise package
Community Reviewed by 3+ independent developers Explore Ably's community support channel for our pub/sub messaging platform	5 / 5 Presence on multiple channels / 5 Size and activity / 5 “The Firebase community can be found on several different channels: Slack, Stack Overflow, Google Groups, Firebase forums, YouTube. The community is quite active - there are sample apps and codelabs, meetups, podcasts. If you post a question on forums, you are likely to get an answer from the community in a day or so.“	4.50 / 5 Presence on multiple channels / 5 Size and activity / 5 Twilio has moderate online presence. I could not find an online presence on Slack, but I was able to find Twilio-related engagements on Discourse and Stackoverflow. There are other recognized channels like Twilio Developer Community, and Twilio on Dev.to, where Twilio organizes hackathons and where you can find tutorials. The community there is active and generates content like new projects, articles, and answers to questions. You are likely to get or find an answer to your question, regardless of how complex it is. Twilio repositories have over one thousand stars on GitHub.
Support What types of support options and response times do Firebase and Twilio offer? Explore Ably's support options for our pub/sub messaging platform	General support options Email/ticket, community (e.g. Stack Overflow and Slack), FAQs, technical documentation. Enterprise support Enterprise support is available through the GCP support console, which provides a Premium Support package. It includes 24/7 support for critical-impact issues, dedicated technical account manager, and operational health reviews. Response time Unknown for Firebase direct support. 15-minute response time for priority 1 issues when support is provided via the GCP Premium Support package.	Twilio's support options include: * Help Center * 24/7 phone and email support (for premium customers). Typically it takes about 1-3 hours to get support.

Pricing & Support

Free package

What do the free packages offered by Firebase and Twilio consist of?

Explore Ably's free package for our pub/sub messaging platform

The Spark plan includes several products from the Firebase suite that are entirely free to use, such as cloud messaging (FCM) or in-app messaging. The Spark plan also allows for free usage of most of the other products, up to certain limits. Some examples: first 125k/month Cloud Functions invocations free, 10 GB of free storage (hosting), and 1 GiB of free storage in Cloud Firestore.

Not bad

On Twilio Sync, your first 200 endpoint-hours for each month are free:

“Endpoints are unique devices or browser tabs and are counted once for each wall-clock hour during which they interact with Sync. Each unique endpoint will incur charges of at most $0.01 per calendar day.”

Users also get free access to their first 10,000 actions each month:

“Actions are defined as incoming requests from your application that read and write data. Resulting webhooks, updates to connected endpoints, and storage are included in the cost of an action.”

Pricing model

How are the Firebase and Twilio pricing models calculated?

Explore Ably's pricing model for our pub/sub messaging platform

Firebase offers two pricing plans: the Spark plan (free) and the Blaze plan (pay as you go), which is recommended for building apps at scale.

Most Firebase products are entirely free to use for both plans, with hard limits on some products for the Spark plan (and some missing features, too). The Blaze plan includes the free usage from the Spark plan and allows access to all Firebase features and products. On top of that, pricing is calculated monthly based on a multitude of factors, such as message ingestion & delivery, document read, write, delete operations, data storage, hosting, or function invocations. For example, Cloud Firestore storage is calculated at $0.18/GiB, and hosting is calculated at $0.026/GB.

Pricing varies on what service you intend to use.

Specifically for Twilio Sync, the pay-as-you-go model is employed and pricing depends on the endpoint-hour. Here is the breakdown:

Accessing 201 and 12,000 endpoint-hours costs $0.00250/endpoint-hour

Once the 12,000 endpoint-hours threshold is crossed, users begin to pay a lesser amount. Between 12,001 and 72,000 users pay $0.00200/endpoint-hour

Find out more about Twilio Sync pricing

Enterprise package

What benefits do the Firebase and Twilio enterprise packages offer?

Explore Ably's enterprise package for our pub/sub messaging platform

The Blaze plan gives access to all Firebase features and products and has enhanced usage limits.

Key benefits

Google Cloud Platform integration
Multiple databases per project (Realtime Database)
Unlimited number of tests (you are charged for test time only. In contrast, with the free Spark plan, you are limited to 15 tests per day)
Cloud Vision APIs

Twilio offers a Premium Support package.

Key benefits

Bulk Export
Single sign-on
Account Insights
Public Key Client Validation

Find out more about the Twilio enterprise package

Community

Reviewed by 3+ independent developers

Explore Ably's community support channel for our pub/sub messaging platform

5 / 5

Presence on multiple channels / 5

Size and activity / 5

“The Firebase community can be found on several different channels: Slack, Stack Overflow, Google Groups, Firebase forums, YouTube. The community is quite active - there are sample apps and codelabs, meetups, podcasts. If you post a question on forums, you are likely to get an answer from the community in a day or so.“

4.50 / 5

Presence on multiple channels / 5

Size and activity / 5

Twilio has moderate online presence. I could not find an online presence on Slack, but I was able to find Twilio-related engagements on Discourse and Stackoverflow. There are other recognized channels like Twilio Developer Community, and Twilio on Dev.to, where Twilio organizes hackathons and where you can find tutorials. The community there is active and generates content like new projects, articles, and answers to questions. You are likely to get or find an answer to your question, regardless of how complex it is. Twilio repositories have over one thousand stars on GitHub.

Support

What types of support options and response times do Firebase and Twilio offer?

Explore Ably's support options for our pub/sub messaging platform

General support options

Email/ticket, community (e.g. Stack Overflow and Slack), FAQs, technical documentation.

Enterprise support

Enterprise support is available through the GCP support console, which provides a Premium Support package. It includes 24/7 support for critical-impact issues, dedicated technical account manager, and operational health reviews.

Response time

Unknown for Firebase direct support.

15-minute response time for priority 1 issues when support is provided via the GCP Premium Support package.

Twilio's support options include:

* Help Center

* 24/7 phone and email support (for premium customers).

Typically it takes about 1-3 hours to get support.

Disclaimer: The information presented for Firebase was last updated on 6 November 2020 and on 28 February 2021 for Twilio. It is possible that some details may now be out of date. If you think that’s the case, please let us know so we can update them. In any case, you should not rely solely on the information presented here and must check with each provider before deciding to integrate or buy any of these two solutions.

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