Firebase News #11 🔥 🔥 🔥
Cloud Functions Cold Start, New (smaller) Firebase SDK, Firestore, and App Check
Hello All,
We’re back!
It has been a while since we had and update on Firebase (like over 6 months), but there is a lot of fun stuff happening and the Firebase team has released some amazing new features.
On our side, we’re going strong with our API-first platform Ayrshare for all you social media API needs. Basically, with a few lines of code, you can schedule posts to either your company's or your users' social media accounts.
Now onto the show…
A Firebase Cloud Functions Cold Start Solution
The functions cold start issue has been plaguing Firebase developers and their user ever since cloud functions were introduced. The issue is new instances of your server often need to be created from scratch, which can take 10 or 30 seconds. Didn’t you know users like to sit and watch a spinner for 30 seconds? We now finally have a solution, but at a cost $$$. @Ayrshare
The New (smaller) Firebase SDK Package
Ok, this is a big one, or technically small one…I just had to. The Firebase team has delivered a highly requested feature of a small SDK bundle size. They did this with a functional re-write and tree-shaking. The downside is you need to rewrite a bunch of code, but they do have a bridge as you migrate. @Firebase
How to Build an MVP with React and Firebase
A great article on taking your first steps with Firebase and React. The images and diagrams really help get you started with both the code and the Firebase dashboard. @myxsys
Getting started with Cloud Firestore for the web
The presenter Todd is fantastic. He is one of my favorite Firebase explainers and I’ve learned a lot from his videos. In this one he reviews Firestore, specifically for the web integration. We use Firestore and overall it is wonderful. The good (speed, real-time snapshots, and the SDK interface) out weights the bad (lot of extra call with a $ cost because of limited querying capabilities). @ToddKerpelman
Firebase App Check Protects Your Backend Resources
There has always been a security hole where unauthorized access could happen to your callable functions. This been fixed with App Check. It is an app or device attestation that makes sure the requests originate from your authentic app or the requests originate from an authentic, untampered device. I found it is a little hard to figure out the workflow, but eventually did, and could never get it fully working with Hosting Previews.
That is all for this week and I’ll try to get back on a regular publishing cadence. Also, don’t forget to check out Ayrshare’s Business Plan if you want to publish to social networks from your app’s backend system via APIs.