An Enterprise Strategy for Low Cost Digital Storage

Why developers are looking for firebase alternatives right now

Ever felt that sudden gut punch when you check your cloud billing dashboard and see a spike you didn't plan for? It’s a classic "welcome to the big leagues" moment for many devs who started on firebase but are now hitting the ceiling of what it can actually do for a growing biz.

Firebase is basically the king of getting an MVP out the door in a weekend, but that convenience comes with some heavy baggage. According to the 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey—which is the most recent comprehensive data available—about 13.9% of pro devs are using firebase, making it the fifth most popular cloud platform. But as you scale, that proprietary nosql setup starts feeling like a cage.

• Unpredictable pricing: Since it's usage-based, a sudden traffic spike or a poorly optimized query can blow your budget. Firebase charges users per read and write operation, and some users have seen costs jump from $50 to over $100k in just a few days.
• Migration headaches: Moving your data and logic away from google's ecosystem usually means a massive rewrite of your backend.
• Black box logic: You don't get much control over the underlying infra, which is a dealbreaker for teams needing custom database tuning or complex relational data.

If you're building for healthcare or b2b finance, the basic auth package just doesn't cut it. You'll quickly realize it's missing the "grown-up" stuff that enterprise customers demand.

• No native multi-tenancy: In b2b saas, you need to isolate data between different orgs. Firebase doesn't do this out of the box, so you end up duct-taping custom logic together.
• Weak mfa options: You're mostly stuck with sms-based mfa. If your users want totp (authenticator apps) or hardware keys like passkeys, you have to look elsewhere.
• Compliance hurdles: While it's gdpr compliant, meeting strict data residency rules is tough when you don't have granular control over where every bit of user data lives.

Honestly, the moment you start needing saml or scim provisioning for a big client, you'll see why the "firebase way" starts to break down. We'll dig into the specific technical gaps next.

Supabase: The open source sql powerhouse

If you're tired of nosql limitations but love the firebase "magic," you've probably heard people shouting about Supabase. It’s basically the postgres-flavored answer to google’s ecosystem, and honestly, it fixes a lot of the "black box" issues we talked about earlier.

Most devs hit a wall with firebase because relational data is just harder to do in nosql. Supabase gives you a full postgresql instance, which means you get real sql, joins, and complex queries without the headache.

• Full SQL Access: You aren't stuck with a limited api. If you want to run a complex migration or a gnarly join, you just do it.
• Real-time that actually works: They use a tool called Realtime to listen to database changes. It feels just as snappy as firebases' listener but on a relational backend.
• Predictable Scaling: Since it's just postgres, you can optimize indexes or tune performance yourself instead of praying the cloud provider handles it.

The auth system is powered by GoTrue, which is an open-source api for managing users and issuing JWTs. It’s surprisingly deep. You get row-level security (rls) natively, which means you can write your access policies directly in the database.

For a healthcare app, this is huge because you can ensure a doctor only sees their specific patients at the database level, not just the app level. Supabase is often called "the open source firebase" because it replicates the core services while giving you the keys to the infra.

Specialized ciam for scaling b2b and b2c apps

So you've hit the wall where firebase auth feels like a toy. It happens to everyone once you start dealing with real enterprise clients who demand things like "saml sso" or "scim provisioning" and you realize google's basic identity package just isn't built for that.

When you're scaling b2b apps, you aren't just managing users; you're managing organizations. Each client needs their own little island where they can manage their own team, roles, and security policies without you having to hardcode every single logic gate.

Most devs try to "fudge" multi-tenancy in firebase by adding an org_id string to the user metadata. It works for a bit, but it's a nightmare for security. Platforms like Frontegg are built with native multi-tenancy as a first-class citizen.

• Tenant Isolation: Instead of manual filtering, the system handles org-level separation out of the box.
• Delegated Admin: You can give your customers a pre-built "admin portal" so they can manage their own users, reset passwords, and view audit logs without bothering your support team.
• Enterprise SSO: You can let a big client plug in their own Okta or Azure AD instance in minutes rather than weeks of dev work.

If you're doing b2c at scale—like a retail app or a fintech platform—you need more than just a login box. You need to stop bots and fraud before they hit your database.

• Risk-based Auth: Tools like LoginRadius or Descope use "adaptive mfa". If a user logs in from a new country, it triggers a second factor, but keeps it frictionless for regular logins.
• Passkeys and WebAuthn: Firebase is notoriously slow on the passkey front. Specialized CIAMs let you go passwordless natively, which is a massive win for conversion rates.

If you don't want to piece together a specialized ciam with a separate database, you might prefer an all-in-one alternative like Appwrite or Amplify that keeps things under one roof.

Appwrite and AWS Amplify: Different paths to the same goal

Look, if you're hitting the "firebase wall," you have to decide if you want to own your infra or just move to a bigger, more complex cloud. It’s basically the choice between being a landlord or renting a penthouse in a massive skyscraper.

If you need total control over where your data lives—maybe for gdpr or hipaa compliance—Appwrite is a solid bet. It’s basically a collection of docker containers you can drop onto any server.

• Data Residency: Since you host it (on-prem or digitalocean, whatever), you know exactly where the bits are.
• Docker-First: If your devops team already lives in terminal, they’ll love the containerized workflow.

Then there’s AWS Amplify. This is for when you know you’re gonna hit millions of users and you’re already paying amazon for s3 buckets anyway. It’s basically a wrapper around heavy-duty services like cognito and appsync.

• Cognito Integration: You get enterprise-grade user pools that handle massive scale without breaking a sweat.
• Lambda Triggers: You can write custom logic for almost any part of the auth flow using lambda.

How to choose the right competitor for your stack

Picking a backend is basically deciding how much you want to sleep at night once your app actually gets popular. You gotta balance that "get it done now" vibe with the "oh no, we need to scale this" reality.

The first big question is always sql vs nosql. If your data is just a bunch of loose documents, firebase is fine, but the moment you need relational integrity—like a fintech app where transactions must link to specific accounts—you'll want a postgres based system like supabase.

Honestly, the code usually tells the story. In firebase you're stuck with their specific sdk patterns which can get pretty bloated. With something like Appwrite, it feels a lot more like a standard rest api.

Here is a quick look at how you'd init a client in Appwrite:

// Appwrite is pretty straightforward
import { Client, Account } from "appwrite";

const client = new Client()
    .setEndpoint('https://cloud.appwrite.io/v1')
    .setProject('my-cool-app');
const account = new Account(client);

And here is the usual firebase bloat you have to deal with just to get started:

// Firebase requires multiple imports and a complex config object
import { initializeApp } from "firebase/app";
import { getAuth } from "firebase/auth";
import { getFirestore } from "firebase/firestore";

const firebaseConfig = {
  apiKey: "AIzaSyA...",
  authDomain: "my-cool-app.firebaseapp.com",
  projectId: "my-cool-app",
  storageBucket: "my-cool-app.appspot.com",
  messagingSenderId: "123456789",
  appId: "1:12345:web:abc123"
};

const app = initializeApp(firebaseConfig);
const auth = getAuth(app);
const db = getFirestore(app);

The Migration Blueprint

Moving away from firebase isn't just about switching sdks; it's about moving your most precious asset—your users. If you mess this up, you lock everyone out.

1. Exporting Auth Data You can't just "download" passwords from firebase because they are hashed. You'll need the firebase CLI to run auth:export. This gives you a JSON or CSV with the password hashes, salt, and the hashing algorithm used (usually scrypt).

2. Password Hashing Compatibility Most modern systems like Supabase or Appwrite support importing these hashes. You have to make sure your new provider's auth engine is configured for firebase's specific flavor of scrypt (which uses specific signer keys and salt separators). If you don't do this, the passwords won't match when the user tries to log in.

3. Database ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) Since you're likely moving from NoSQL (Firestore) to SQL (Postgres), you can't just copy-paste.

• Extract: Use a script to pull collections from Firestore.
• Transform: Flatten your nested documents. In Firestore, a "user" might have an array of "orders." In Postgres, you'll need to split these into two tables with a foreign key.
• Load: Use a tool like pgloader or a custom Python script to batch insert the data into your new relational tables.

4. The "Dual Write" Phase For high-traffic apps, don't just flip a switch. Start writing new data to both systems while you migrate the old stuff in the background. Once the data is synced, you point the frontend to the new api.

Conclusion and final thoughts

Look, the "firebase way" is a fantastic honeymoon phase, but when you're staring at a six-figure bill or a fortune 500 client asking for saml, the party is over. You gotta start evaluating your long-term needs way before the billing dashboard gives you a heart attack.

In the current landscape, reliable firebase competitors are more mature than ever, and frankly, they're often better built for the "grown-up" stages of an app.

• As we explored with Supabase, choosing relational by default is a lifesaver. If your data has actual relationships, just use postgres. You'll thank yourself when you aren't writing nested loops to fetch basic user profiles.
• Focus on data ownership and residency: If you need to hit gdpr or hipaa, tools like Appwrite or self-hosted Supabase give you the keys to the infra.
• Prioritize the user journey with specialized CIAM: Don't settle for basic sms mfa. Specialized layers let you drop in passkeys or custom flows without a total backend rewrite.

Honestly, the best time to move was yesterday; the second best time is before your next big traffic spike. Anyway, good luck—your bank account will thank you.