Firebase is a Google-managed Backend-as-a-Service (BaaS) focused on rapid app development with pre-built services and zero server management, while AWS is a comprehensive Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) platform offering 200+ services requiring more configuration but providing greater scalability and cost control for enterprise workloads.
Firebase vs AWS — Side-by-side comparison on A Versus B
Google-managed Backend-as-a-Service platform for rapid app development with integrated services
Comprehensive cloud infrastructure platform with 200+ services for enterprise and scalable applications
Service Model. Time to Deploy First App. Available Services. Free Tier Database Capacity. Pricing Model Complexity. Market Share (Backend Services). Vendor Lock-in Risk
Choose Firebase if you're building mobile apps, MVPs, or real-time applications where speed to market and minimal DevOps overhead are priorities—it excels at rapid prototyping with pre-built authentication, databases, and hosting. Choose AWS if you're building enterprise applications, need extensive customization, multiple database options, machine learning capabilities, or expect massive scale—the complexity is justified by flexibility and long-term cost optimization potential.
Firebase: 1,000,000 | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: Not available in Crashlytics | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: 30+ | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: 15 | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: Via Cloud Monitoring (external) | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: $0.05-0.10 | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: 7+ (Database, Auth, Hosting, Storage, etc.) | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: Limited event history | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: $150-$300 | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: 1 GB | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: Firestore Query Language (limited, no joins) | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: Sub-100ms updates | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: 18+ (Analytics, ML, Hosting, Functions, Messaging) | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: Closed-source, proprietary | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: Not supported | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: 2,000,000+ | Amazon Web Services (AWS): Largest
Firebase: 15 minutes | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 120 minutes
Firebase: $45-60 | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: 20-50 | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: 12+ | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: Cloud SDK ~50-100 | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: 40+ | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: 5-8 (custom scripts/tools) | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: 100 | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: 15-20 | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: $100-200 | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: $500-2000 | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: 99.95% guaranteed | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: 500-2000ms | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: No (proprietary) | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: No | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: Not applicable (closed source) | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A (not a single GitHub repo)
Firebase: 15-30 minutes | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 120-240 minutes
Firebase: 25+ pre-built services | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 200+ services
Firebase: 5GB Firestore storage | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 0.75GB RDS micro (750 hours/month)
Firebase: $15,000-25,000 (Firestore reads/writes) | Amazon Web Services (AWS): $3,000-8,000 (optimized EC2 + RDS)
Firebase: 40+ regions | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 32 regions
Firebase: Limited—no complex joins or aggregations | Amazon Web Services (AWS): Extensive—full SQL, custom queries, advanced analytics
Firebase: 1-2 weeks | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 8-12 weeks
Firebase: 12% of developers use Firebase | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 32% of developers use AWS
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): $0.023
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): $0.004
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): Multiple models via Bedrock
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): AWS Outposts (limited)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): Fargate (feature-rich)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 32%
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 200+
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 33
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 5/10
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 8/10
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): Moderate (Outposts)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 4/10
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): Strong (ECS/EKS)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): Via Athena/Redshift
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): AWS only
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): Pay-per-use only
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): N/A
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 33 regions
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 105+ zones
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 190+ native services
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 30-45 (via Console/CLI)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): AWS CloudFormation requires manual GitHub setup
Monthly Cost (1 vCPU, 1GB RAM, Standard Instance)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): $9.50 (t3.micro on-demand)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): $0.0116
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 32% of global cloud infrastructure (2024)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): $0.0416
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): $0.02
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 8-12 hours (SageMaker)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 15-30 seconds (Athena, 1TB scan)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): $15,000
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 18-25 steps (EKS setup)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 12 months + always-free services
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 1 hour (Business Support)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): SageMaker, Bedrock, Forecast, Lookout, Kendra
Monthly Cost for 10TB Egress Data Transfer
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): $116 (after 1GB free)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 125ms (Lambda standard)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 45-60 (configure VPC, IAM, EC2, security groups)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 8+ (RDS, DynamoDB, Aurora, ElastiCache, Neptune, DocumentDB, Keyspaces, Timestream)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 99.99% (us-east-1 region)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 50,000+ (t3.large EC2)
Estimated Learning Time for New Developer
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 80-100 hours
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 3 languages (YAML, JSON, TypeScript/Python/Java via CDK)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 200+ AWS-specific services (largest portfolio in cloud)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): Free (1 year, then pay-as-you-go infrastructure costs)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 33+ geographic regions with 105+ availability zones
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 1M+ AWS Certified professionals
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): $0 (free tier + pay-per-use)
Cost for Standard Production App (2 dynos + add-ons)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): $100-150 (EC2 Reserved + RDS)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 24,576
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 100-3000
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): No, requires CodePipeline ($0.02/active pipeline)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 108 availability zones in 33 regions
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 200+ services
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): $0 (free tier), pay-as-you-go
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): No (Shield Advanced: $3,000/month)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 120+ minutes (full configuration)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 15+ (RDS, DynamoDB, Redshift, etc.)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): ~80ms (median global)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): ~700 Gbps (AWS Shield Advanced)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): ~75%
Compute Instance Starting Price (hourly)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): $0.0116/hour (t3.micro)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): up to 72%
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): RDS for SQL Server (third-party)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): SageMaker (launched 2017)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 105+ zones across 33 regions
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 50-150ms
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): Layer 3/4 only (Advanced costs $3,000+/mo)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): Pay-as-you-go from $0
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 99.99%
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 30-60+ minutes (account setup, IAM, networking)
Firebase: N/A | Amazon Web Services (AWS): 32% of public cloud (2024)
How to choose between Firebase and Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Compare Firebase vs Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Firebase vs AWS — Structured Comparison Data
Machine-readable comparison dataset for Firebase vs AWS. Contains 121 attribute comparisons, 5 FAQ pairs.
Firebase vs AWS — Attribute Category Vocabulary
Taxonomy of attribute categories used to classify comparison data for Firebase vs AWS.
Firebase is cheaper at small scale (free tier to ~10,000 daily active users), but AWS becomes 3-5x cheaper at enterprise scale (1M+ DAU). Firebase's pay-per-operation model causes costs to skyrocket with traffic, while AWS allows cost optimization through Reserved Instances and Savings Plans. For long-term operations, AWS typically wins financially above 50,000 DAU.
Migration is possible but difficult. Firebase uses proprietary Firestore/Realtime Database formats; you'll need to export data and rebuild queries for AWS databases like RDS or DynamoDB. This typically takes 2-4 weeks for medium applications and requires rewriting authentication logic since Firebase Auth doesn't map directly to AWS Cognito. Plan for 100-300 engineering hours.
Which is better for real-time applications?
Firebase wins for real-time—Firestore offers built-in real-time sync and listener capabilities out-of-the-box. AWS requires custom WebSocket solutions using API Gateway + Lambda, adding complexity. However, AWS's solution is more flexible and cheaper at extreme scale. Firebase is the clear choice for real-time apps under 100,000 concurrent users.
AWS requires significantly more DevOps expertise—you must manage VPCs, security groups, RDS instances, auto-scaling, and monitoring. Firebase abstracts 95% of infrastructure concerns; developers focus on writing code. A Firebase app needs 1 DevOps person per 10 developers, while AWS typically needs 1 per 3-5 developers.
Which is better for enterprise applications?
AWS is better for enterprise—it offers compliance certifications (SOC 2, HIPAA, FedRAMP), advanced security controls, multiple database engines, and dedicated support. Firebase serves enterprise better for mobile/web apps where speed matters more than customization. Enterprise typically uses both: Firebase for customer-facing apps, AWS for backend systems.
How to Choose Between Firebase and Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Service Model: Firebase has Backend-as-a-Service (BaaS), while Amazon Web Services (AWS) has Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS).
Time to Deploy First App: Firebase has 15-30 minutes, while Amazon Web Services (AWS) has 2-4 hours.
Available Services: Firebase has 25+ integrated services, while Amazon Web Services (AWS) has 200+ services.
Free Tier Database Capacity: Firebase has 1GB Realtime Database, 5GB Firestore, while Amazon Web Services (AWS) has Up to 750 hours RDS micro instance monthly.
Pricing Model Complexity: Firebase has Simple, pay-as-you-go per feature, while Amazon Web Services (AWS) has Complex with 200+ service pricing tiers.
Consider: Market Share (Backend Services)
Market Share (Backend Services): Firebase has 12% of developers, while Amazon Web Services (AWS) has 32% of developers.
Vendor Lock-in Risk: Firebase has High - proprietary APIs, while Amazon Web Services (AWS) has Lower - more standard APIs.