When comparing FeathersJS vs Google Firebase, the Slant community recommends FeathersJS for most people. In the question“What are the best Meteor alternatives for realtime JS apps?” FeathersJS is ranked 5th while Google Firebase is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose FeathersJS is:
Feather can sync events happening in two different Node processes or even servers in real-time. For example: an event happens in server A, the user connected to server B is instantly notified of that event. This is done through a central Redis or Mongo collection or through a websocket libraries' clustering library.
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Pros
Pro Can sync events between different Node instances
Feather can sync events happening in two different Node processes or even servers in real-time. For example: an event happens in server A, the user connected to server B is instantly notified of that event.
This is done through a central Redis or Mongo collection or through a websocket libraries' clustering library.
Pro Easy REST APIs
Through services, Feathers provides instant CRUD functionality, it also can easily expose a RESTful and real-time API through HTTP/HTTPS and websockets.
Pro Can be integrated in an existing ExpressJS project
Since Feathers itself is built on top of Express (it's a thin wrapper over socket.io, primus and Express) and because of Feathers' highly modular nature, it's very easy to integrate Feathers in an existing Express project.
Pro Plug-in any feature you need
Feathers makes extensive use of modules (which are called Feathers services). These services work like ExpressJS middleware and can be used with app.use('/path', serviceObject)
.
Services help developers keep their applications modular and as minimal as possible, without any unnecessary libraries or bloat.
Pro Support for different socket transports
FeatherJS uses primus which is a universal wrapper for real-time frameworks. Through primus you can easily choose which socket transport you want to use.
Pro Flexible Pricing
The Blaze Plan is a pay-as-you-go plan, which is, you pay for what you use, without overhead or upfront costs.
Pro Straightforward hosting
Powered by Google's Cloud Platform, Firebase allows you to deploy static web pages or web applications with a nifty Node.js-based CLI Tool.
Pro Super fast CDN
All static website content is hosted on the Fastly CDN making your website really fast.
Pro More than just hosting web applications
In the core of Firebase allows you to do testing for Android apps, Analytics, Real-time Database, and many more. It's centered mostly for progressive web applications and mobile applications with real-time connectivity to your service.
Pro Almost free if you add Cloudflare in front (no bandwidth costs) and cache effectively
The built-in CDN is great too, but if you're concerned about bandwidth costs, using it with Cloudflare is an excellent option option.
Cons
Con Not so widely used
Could be problematic to convince the client use this framework in his/her project.
Con Not very beginner friendly
Although the documentation for Feathers is very good, it still needs some configuration in order to get Feathers up for developing something with it.
Con Google blocks Access
Some Google services, software and cloud systems, are not available to certain countries. blocked access by google following USA Policies.
Con Linked to Google Cloud Platform
If you don't have a Google Account, you won't be able to access Google cloud services, including this one.