Firebase Feels Distracted — Should We Be Concerned?
Is Firebase here for the long term?
I’ve been using Firebase for about seven years. I’ve gone deep — met with the Firebase team, written extensively about it, built and sold a company that ran entirely on it, and I’m currently building a new AI-ready documentation platform that uses Firebase at its core.
Ok, so I’m all in, right! However, for a while now I’ve become growingly concerned about the longevity of Firebase.
Focus on AI
Every month I watch the YouTube Firebase updates, and every month I yearn for updates to the core product: Function, Firestore (please give more), Auth, etc.
But over the past couple of years, most updates have focused on AI.
I understand why — AI is Google’s priority, and I’m sure bonuses are tied to it. Regardless, the core Firebase platform feels stagnant.
Some long-standing issues have gone unresolved for years, which is a real shame. For example:
Firestore’s 1MB document limit (MongoDB allows 16MB). I was told two years ago by the Firebase engineers that this was being worked on. So far…
onCreate / onDelete Auth triggers still lack proper support in Functions v2 and modern Node runtimes. This is a big one and when Node 20 is no longer supported I won’t be surprised if Auth is deprecated.
Meanwhile, competitors like Supabase ship aggressively. Their changelog reads like a roadmap being executed in real time and I’m jealous about all the cool new features they have released.
I’ve also noticed several well-known members, like David Eastman and Frank van Puffelen (Puff), of the Firebase team move on in recent years. That may be completely normal — but when paired with slower core development, it makes me go hmmmm.
Having Hope
I hope this is temporary. Firebase has delivered enormous value to me and my teams - as I said above. It lowered the barrier to building serious products and help me move quickly - with with Claude Code it is crazy.
But technology moves fast. If the core platform stalls while the ecosystem accelerates, developers will look elsewhere.
I want Firebase to win. The question is whether Google still wants it to.
As someone building infrastructure again, these questions matter. The foundation you choose shapes everything you build.
(For context, I’m currently building Jamdesk — an AI-ready documentation platform — and Firebase powers it. So I genuinely hope this platform continues to thrive.)