Keep It Real – Firebase Realtime Database

It has always been a dream to produce a hassle-free backend that will help in providing profound solutions to build better mobile and web applications. In April, 2012, James Tamplin and Andrew Lee launched Firebase. In its early stage, Firebase provided an API that helped to integrate the online chat modules to websites. Now Firebase is one of the dominant BaaS (Backend as a Service) platforms that is continuously improving the cloud experience by introducing new features and functionalities. Firebase is the only provider with autosyncing database functionality. It lets you grow great applications, develop your consumer base, and acquire more monetary value. Each feature works freely, and they work far superior together. Firebase has created a massive buzz in the developer community. Most of the traditional backend services are quite easy to implement and get into production. Firebase is the best fit when there is a short development time and the application demands data in real time as it is easy to scale. We can also mix and match Firebase products to solve everyday app development challenges.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics: 

• Overview of the Firebase Realtime Database
• Setting up the development environment for the Firebase toolchain
• Creating our first Firebase Android project and structuring the data
• Reading and writing the data and enabling offline capabilities
• Working with different structures of data in the Realtime Database
• Pros and cons of using the Realtime Database