In today’s dynamic digital landscape, developing mobile and web applications quickly is important to stay on top of the competition. Therefore, making a robust and secure backend infrastructure for android and ios mobile app development is essential that helps to manage real-time updates, user authentication, and data storage, and other aspects of the process.
There are several cloud-based options available for backend development. Among them, AWS Amplify & Firebase are in great demand. In this blog, we are going to compare AWS Amplify vs. Firebase and explore key aspects of both solutions. Let’s get started.
Shortcuts:
- Definition of AWS Amplify
- What technologies does AWS Amplify support?
- Key features of AWS Amplify
- Amplify pricing plans
- Definition of Firebase
- Key features of Firebase
- Firebase pricing plans
- AWS Amplify vs. Firebase: Complete Comparison
- Final Words
- FAQs
Definition of AWS Amplify
AWS Amplify is a renowned mobile application development powered by Amazon which is designed to simplify the process of full-stack serverless & cloud-based mobile app development. It provides a diverse range of services and features that make this framework a great choice for several application scenarios. As it’s an open-source JS library, AWS Amplify makes app making the process easier and more convenient. Key characteristics of AWS Amplify include:
- Authentication
- Data storage facility
- Offline synchronization
What Technologies Does AWS Amplify Support?
AWS Amplify is designed to support almost every platform available in the market. It also supports various web and mobile app development frameworks. The following platforms and frameworks are commonly supported by AWS Amplify:
For Mobile Apps :
- iOS
- Android
- React Native
- Flutter
- Ionic
For Web Apps :
- React
- Javascript
- Next.js
- Angular
- Vue
Key Features of AWS Amplify
As one of the popular Firebase alternatives, Amplify has a set of unique features that effectively streamline the app development process. Some of the key features include:
1. Authentication: Amplify offers a robust authentication feature with popular authentication provider support like custom authentication flows, social identity providers, and Amazon Cognito. This will make it easier to quickly implement user login, registration & access control in the mobile application.
2. Real-time data: With the AWS Amplify framework, you will be able to make real-time data features by using AWS AppSync. This feature is extremely beneficial for developing chat apps, collaborative applications, live feeds, etc.
3. GraphQL API: This is another unique feature of AWS Amplify that enables you to easily define your data models with the help of GraphQL schema & then generates APIs automatically for the front end. This feature usually helps you configure & manage all your data.
4. Ample storage: The Amplify framework offers excellent options for managing and storing valuable data like Amazon DynamoDB for NoSQL database requirements and Amazon S3 for storing files.
5. Hosting: AWS Amplify provides hosting features for web apps that will allow you to directly deploy frontend codes from your Amplify CLI. It also offers easy AWS CloudFront integration for global distribution and fast content delivery.
6. Serverless Functions: With the AWS Lambda platform, you can smoothly build serverless functions & integrate them into your project. This feature is extremely advantageous for running and managing backend logic without servers.
7. Monitoring & analytics: AWS Amplify offers monitoring and analytics capabilities that will help you focus on your overall application performance and user behavior.
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Amplify Pricing Plans
Like other AWS Services, the pricing model of the AWS Amplify platform is very cost-effective and flexible. With Amplify, you pay for the service you’re using only. Usually, Amplify charges based on variables such as data transferred, files stored, builds per minute, etc. Here is a complete AWS Amplify pricing model:
Backend Development: Free to start & pay as you go
Frontend UI Development: No costs
App Hosting (12 months free)
- Build & deploy: Free up to 1000 build minutes/month
- Data storage: Free up to 5 GB/month
- Data transfer out: Free up to 15 GB/month
- Request count: Free up to 500,000 requests/month
- Request duration: Free up to 100 GB hours/month
App Hosting (Pay as you go)
- Build & deploy: $0.01/minute
- Data storage: $0.023 per GB/month
- Data transfer out: $0.15 per GB
- Request count: $0.30 per 1 mn requests
- Request duration: $0.20/hour
Definition of Firebase
Designed by Google, Firebase is a powerful mobile app and web app development platform that is known for its real-time database capabilities & easy features. It offers a comprehensive range of solutions required for front-end developers. Trusted by millions, Firebase hosts services, databases, integration, and authentication for different types of applications including iOS, Android, Node.js, JavaScript, C++, PHP, Java, Node.js, Unity, Java, etc.
Major characteristics of Firebase include:
- Easy to start
- End-to-end app development
- Serverless
- High machine-learning capabilities
- Better security features
Key features of Firebase
Just like AWS Amplify, the Firebase platform also has a number of features that help developers build mobile applications flawlessly. Some of the significant features of Firebase include:
1. Authentication: Firebase offers an excellent authentication system that smoothly supports phone number authentication, email & password, social logins, etc. With this feature, you can easily implement user authentication in mobile or web applications.
2. Cloud Firestore: Cloud Firestore is an excellent NoSQL database of Firebase that offers advanced data modeling and querying capabilities. It can also be considered a great alternative to the Firebase’s Realtime Database.
3. Real-time database: The Realtime Database of Firebase is a cloud-hosted NoSQL database that helps you properly synchronize data in real time. This is a perfect choice for developing applications that need quick updates like chatting apps.
4. Analytics: The Firebase Analytics feature gives valuable insights into application performance and user behavior. It also allows you to understand how a user smoothly interacts with your application & makes well-informed decisions.
5. Cloud functions: With the help of Firebase Cloud, you can smoothly deploy and manage serverless functions. These cloud functions can easily be triggered by several Firebase solutions that offer a flexible backend infrastructure for your application.
6. Hosting: This is a very secure & fast hosting solution for web apps. Generally, Firebase offers the easiest way to develop the frontend structure of your app & it mainly includes a CDN integration feature that helps in faster content delivery.
7. Storage: The storage of Firebase is specially designed to store user-generated content such as files, videos & images. It can be integrated with Firebase Authentication seamlessly for secure and fast access control.
Firebase Pricing Plans
Firebase offers two popular pricing plans including the Firebase Spark plan and Firebase Blaze plan. Each plan has several benefits that help developers build mobile & web applications effortlessly. Here is the complete breakdown of both plans:
Firebase Spark plan: This is known as a free tire plan that gives an ample amount of benefits to kickstart your web or app development journey. Check out the complete list of the Firebase Spark plan:
Realtime Database
- Storage: Up to 1 GB
- No of connections: 100
- Data transfer: 10 GB/month
Firestore
- Storage: Up to 1 GB
- 50,000 reads/day
- 20,000 writes/day
- 20,000 deletes/day
Cloud Functions
- 125,000 invocations per month
- 40,000 GB-seconds per month
- 40,000 CPU-seconds per month
- 5 GB per month of network data
Authentication
- 10,000 verifications per month
- No limits to authentication
Hosting
- Storage: Up to 1 GB
- Data transfer: Up to 10 GB/month
Storage
- Up to 5 GB of storage
- 1 GB per month data transfer
- 20,000 uploads per month
- 50,000 downloads per month
Test Lab
- On physical devices: 10 tests/day
- On virtual devices: 5 tests/day
Firebase Blaze plan:
Blaze is a pay-as-you-go pricing plan that provides higher scalability & flexibility to developers. This plan also offers free tier plans with the same benefits as Spark. Check out the complete list of the Firebase Blaze plan:
Realtime Database
- Storage: $5/GB per month
- Connections: 200k simultaneous connections/database
- Data transfer: $1 per GB (First 10 GB per month is free)
Firestore Pricing
- Document reads: $0.06/100,000 reads
- Document deletes: $0.02/100,000 deletes
- Document writes: $0.18/100,000 writes
- Stored data: $0.18 per GB/month
- Network egress: $0.12/GiB (First 10 GB/month is free)
Cloud Functions Pricing
- $0.40 per million invocations (First 2 million invocations per month is free)
- $0.12 per GB for network data (First 5 GB per month is free)
Authentication Pricing
- $0.01 per verification (First 10,000 verifications per month is free)
- No limits for for other authentications
Hosting Pricing
- Storage: $0.026 per GB/month
- Data transfer: $0.15 per GB (First 10 GB per month is free)
Storage Pricing
- Storage: $0.026 per GB/month
- Uploading: $0.05 per 10K uploads
- Downloading: $0.004 per 10K downloads
- Data transfer: $0.12 per GB (First 1 GB per month is free)
AWS Amplify vs. Firebase: Complete Comparison
Here is a table that outlines the key differences between the AWS Amplify vs the Firebase framework.
Aspects - AWS Amplify - Firebase
Authentication
Better authentication with support for different providers like Amazon Cognito, custom flows, social logins, etc
Simple authentication system with social logins, phone number authentication, email or password, etc.
Real-time data
Supports data features through AWS AppSync in real-time. Best for making collaborative apps & live feeds.
Provides data synchronization with the Cloud Firestore or Realtime Database. Best for collaborative & chat apps.
Serverless functions
Enables serverless function creation with AWS Lambda. This provides good flexibility for the backend.
Firebase Cloud Functions for serverless computing are triggered by different Firebase services.
Hosting
Offers hosting for web apps with smooth integration with AWS CloudFront that helps content delivery.
Firebase Hosting is secure & fast and it comes with built-in CDN integration.
Databases
Offers Amazon Aurora for SQL databases and Amazon DynamoDB for NoSQL
Offers the Realtime Database for data synchronization & Cloud Firestore for NoSQL capabilities
Monitoring & Analytics
Provides monitoring & analytics capabilities to gain valuable insights into app performance & user behavior
Firebase Analytics offers insights into app performance and user behavior
Backend flexibility
Provides good flexibility for complex backend logic and integrates with different AWS solutions
Designed for managing user authentication & real-time data. Not highly flexible for advanced backend logic
Pricing
Pricing is quite complex and it depends on the particular AWS solutions used. Proper cost planning is required.
Simple pricing model that depends on actual usage. This makes it easier to estimate the total costs.
Final Words
AWS Amplify & Firebase are powerful and stable solutions. Therefore, the choice between them mainly varies depending on your project requirements, goals, and team’s expertise. After comparing AWS Amplify vs. Firebase, it is concluded that both offer a set of features for smooth backend development but based on flexibility, skill levels, and use cases, they are slightly different.
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If you’re in search of a user-friendly & straightforward solution with fast & real-time data capabilities, you can choose Firebase & on the other hand, if you need a highly flexible and robust backend setup, AWS Amplify will be the best option for you. For more information, feel free to connect with our professionals.
FAQ’s
What is the difference between AWS Amplify and Firebase?
Amplify & Firebase both provide reliable and better performance for a vast range of mobile applications. Amplify is an open-source framework that works with GraphQL & different databases. This is known for its high flexibility and stability. On the other hand, as a Google BaaS service, Firebase connects NoSQL with the REST API.
Which is best: Firebase or AWS?
Firebase is great for reducing the deployment time & improving the app development process. It also comes with a straightforward pricing model. On the other hand, AWS is the best option for highly sophisticated projects that need extensive customized coding and server-level access. The pricing structure of AWS is also higher than Firebase.
