Hello,
I have developed software with Classic Asp, Asp.NET for more than 20 years, and Node and VueJS in recent years. I also used NoSQL and all SQL type databases. I also have a lot of software developed with VueJS and Firebase. I say this for; I want to use the no-code platform completely for faster software development.
I am currently developing a software with Appgyver and Firebase. But using Firebase with Rest API is really tedious and tiring. Especially managing nested fields and collections and updating arrays, deleting etc. are really tedious.
Instead of preparing a separate schema of Firebase for each API, I can already develop a software with React Native in the same time.
I took a look at Xano yesterday, which I always had in mind, and said, this is what I was looking for. Except for the price of course. I always believe that relational database is better on big projects. Because in this way, you can prepare more efficient and reliable databases and projects. Let’s just say more disciplined and organized.
The application I will make will be a big project with 1000 active users. Do you think I should use Xano or Firebase in this case?
Note: I also used Flutterflow and I left it because it takes hours to preview and debug the application, and the browser constantly crashes while preparing the UI, so even making a simple application can take months.
I wouldn’t even mention Adalo as a choice since Adalo has a huge unique id problem in their database and their servers are very slow.
It’s been a long post. Thank you for reading and for your patience and possible answers.
I think using Google(Firebase) Cloud Functions with Node Js and Express Js would be the best solution. In this way, we can prepare our own serverless backend.
I tried this and it worked perfectly. So I don’t use any data variable or data resource in my Appgyver project. I just run my own functions api endpoints using Http request.
In this way, while developing a web app for my project in the future, I will quickly pass the backend side as I have ready-made APIs.
I will inform you about it in the future.
In addition, when you open a new Google account and log in to Google Cloud, Google gives you a $300 credit with 1 year of usage. It gives an additional $100 credit if you add a business email. Thus, even if Firebase exceeds the Free Tier and goes to paid use, you will probably use it for free for 1 year.
Do not forget; Firebase Functions is already free for up to 2 million invocations. After that, 1 million queries is $0.40!
I’m personally happy with Firebase. Generous plan and very fast.
Work on nested collections/documents is a big problem indeed.
For updates, I usually update the whole document at once.
I find Xano outrageously expensive. They will lower their price when competition gets serious in that niche.
backendless is (in my opinion) a small business. I tried twice to register and check the services and their system was not working and I couldn’t registered.
I also read sth about them with this issue. We shouldn’t rely on such small/medium business services.
I was equally close to moving to Xano because I came from an SQL background. I’m beginning to understand Firebase a little more and I just learned how to work with nested collections that is create, get, post and update nested collections in firebase.
Figuring out how to do that was one of the best things that’s happened to me in a long time.
@Minyoi_Chibuye Thank you for sharing your experience. I used to handle Firebase collections and subcollections with Vuejs easily but never work with them like this. (with rest api and Appgyver connection etc.)
Now with my own functions Api it is easy again. But I still wonder sth. Could you please tell me how to update (patch) this array in an existing document with Appgyver Http request.
Yes, for testing it is good. It is not good for production in the free version even though the Api Rest is unlimited (Community cloud and make Api calls so they don’t stop the project every 7 days). But in the paid version, this super and good price competition.