Firebase vs PostgreSQL

At a Glance

Attribute	Firebase	PostgreSQL
Category	Database	Database
Pricing Model	freemium	open-source
Starting Price	Free	Free
Free Tier	Yes	Yes
Open Source	No	Yes
Platforms	web, iOS, Android	linux, macos, windows, containers

Firebase

PostgreSQL

Firebase

PostgreSQL

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

Get the next comparison in your inbox

Weekly digest — no spam, unsubscribe anytime.

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