Firebase vs Convex

At a Glance

Firebase

Convex

Firebase

Convex

No features listed.

Firebase

Pros

The free Spark plan is surprisingly capable and you can prototype an entire app without a credit card+156
Realtime database sync across clients is dead simple and the SDK handles reconnection and offline state for you+143
Firebase Auth handles phone number verification, Google OAuth, and anonymous users with about 10 lines of code+129
The Emulator Suite lets you run everything locally including Firestore, Auth, and Cloud Functions with full fidelity+108
Google's infrastructure means you get truly global low-latency reads without any configuration+91

Cons

Database

Supabase vs Firebase

Database

Supabase vs Firebase vs PlanetScale

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Vendor lock-in is severe — the client SDK is so deeply embedded in your app that migrating away took my team two full weeks+199
NoSQL Firestore makes complex queries painful — I rewrote a feature three times trying to avoid needing a proper join+189
Pricing can spike unexpectedly because reads are charged per document, and a single inefficient query can cost dollars instead of cents+176
There's no way to do schema migrations or version your data model, so evolving your data structure over time is a manual nightmare+134
Cloud Functions cold starts on the free tier are often 3-5 seconds, which makes them useless for user-facing request handlers+118

Convex

Pros

The reactive query system means your UI automatically updates when data changes without writing any WebSocket or polling code+154
TypeScript end-to-end from database schema to frontend hooks — no API layer to define, no types to duplicate+142
The local development experience with hot reload is the fastest iteration loop I've found for full-stack TypeScript+127
Mutations run as transactions by default, which means you get ACID guarantees without thinking about it+118
Built-in scheduling for background jobs means you don't need a separate queue service for async work+98

Cons

Heavy vendor lock-in — the data model and query language are proprietary and migrating away would require a full rewrite+167
Free tier limits are easy to hit in production with a modest user base and the paid jump is steep for early-stage apps+139
The reactivity model is powerful but adds mental complexity — reasoning about what triggers a re-render requires learning new patterns+103
Not a good fit if you need complex SQL-style analytics or reporting — the document model makes aggregations verbose+88