Everyone wants to become a developer in 2023. when a developer creates a front-end application they need to set up a Backend. In the backend, many developers use Firebase as a database in the backend.
Before that First you need to know what is Firebase
What is Firebase? 🤔
Firebase is a set of hosting services for any type of application. It offers NoSQL and real-time hosting of databases, content, social authentication, notifications, or services, such as a real-time communication server.
Why Firebase? 😊
The Firebase Realtime Database lets you build rich, collaborative applications by allowing secure access to the database directly from client-side code. Data is persisted locally, and even while offline, real-time events continue to fire, giving the end user a responsive experience.
What is the problem with Firebase? 🥲
The problem of data migration
With Firebase, you can't deal easily with data migration like you can with a simple SQL database. Firebase uses JSON and there are almost no features SQL features, so you wouldn't be able to migrate from the existing database easily.The fact that Firebase users are locked in on the platform is a major disadvantage of using Firebase for app development projects. Many developers seek alternative platforms for app development simply because they cannot move their apps to other platforms when the need arises.
Firestore will make you duplicate your data.
Because Firestore querying is limited and there is no map-reduce, one data model won't handle all the cases. You will end up uploading much more data than you need to and do everything in-mem or duplicate the data.
What is Nhost?
Nhost is an open-source backend and development platform that enables developers to build and scale their web and mobile apps.
With the help of it is easy to build and deploy this backend using our platform which takes care of configuration, security, and performance. Things just work and scale automatically so you can focus on your product and your business.
Nhost is an open-source Firebase alternative with GraphQL, built with the following things in mind:
Open Source
GraphQL
SQL
Great Developer Experience
Nhost consists of open-source software:
Database: PostgreSQL
Instant GraphQL API: Hasura
Authentication: Hasura Auth
Storage: Hasura Storage
Serverless Functions: Node.js (JavaScript and TypeScript)
Nhost CLI for local development
Is Nhost better than Firebase? 🤔
With the help of Nhost Users can sync data in real-time with Nhost. Also, they can define complex security policies to keep the data safe. Nhost features file storage where one can upload and manage files. The backend for web and mobile apps ensures developers can resize and optimise images on the fly.
Let's Understand the architecture of Nhost
As you see in the image above, Nhost provides endpoints for:
GraphQL API (
/graphql)Authentication (
/auth)Storage (
/storage)Functions (
/functions)
Data is stored in Postgres and files are stored in S3.