Best Firebase Alternatives for Authorization

Choosing the right auth provider is crucial for businesses in the digital identity landscape. It may be tempting to build your own auth solution, but there are many options available if you decide to buy instead.

Why Find a Firebase Alternative?

Firebase is a popular mobile and web development platform offered by Google. It provides a wide range of services and tools to help developers build, test, and deploy applications more efficiently. One of the core features of Firebase is its authentication service, which allows developers to add user authentication and authorization capabilities to their applications.

Firebase Authentication simplifies the process of integrating user authentication into an application by providing pre-built UI components and backend infrastructure. It supports various authentication methods, including email/password, phone number, social media logins (such as Google, Facebook, Twitter), and more. Firebase Authentication handles user management tasks like user registration, login, password resets, and identity verification.

However, there are a few reasons why people search for an alternative to Firebase:

1. Vendor Lock-in: Firebase is a proprietary platform owned by Google. By relying heavily on Firebase Authentication, developers may become dependent on Google's infrastructure and services, making it challenging to migrate to other platforms or providers in the future.
2. Limited Customization: While Firebase Authentication offers a range of authentication methods, the customization options may be limited compared to building a custom authentication system from scratch. This can be a concern if your application has specific authentication requirements or if you prefer more control over the authentication process.
3. Compliance and Regulatory Constraints: Depending on the nature of your application or the industry you're operating in, you might have specific compliance requirements, such as HIPAA or GDPR. While Firebase has made efforts to comply with certain regulations, it may not cover all the necessary compliance measures, potentially making it unsuitable for certain use cases.
4. Data Privacy Concerns: Firebase Authentication stores user data on Google's servers. If you have concerns about data privacy or prefer to have more control over the storage and handling of user data, using Firebase Authentication may not align with your requirements.
5. Cost: While Firebase offers a free tier, it also has pricing plans based on usage. If your application experiences significant user growth or requires additional features beyond the free tier, the cost of Firebase Authentication and other Firebase services could become a consideration.

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The Top Firebase Alternatives

We already discussed Firebase’s services. However, these are standard in the domain of auth providers. SSO, MFA, and other services are available in Firebase, but everyone else has them too.

Today, factors rather than features differentiate providers. Finding an alternative to Firebase depends on a variety of factors, including cost, setup time, customization possibilities, and migration alternatives.

These are the elements that this post will emphasize. We'll provide a brief synopsis of each service in this guide. But we'll also mention their prices, setup times, and requirements for getting them up and running. Additionally, it's critical to consider whether a service has experienced security problems through its history.

FusionAuth

FusionAuth isn't your standard customer authentication and authorization platform. It has all the features your app needs and then some. It is scalable, adaptable, and remarkably capable of working across all platforms. It's also important to note that FusionAuth is the only major provider who supports both private, single-tenant cloud solutions and self-hosting. It is the Swiss Army knife of authentication. We were created by developers for developers, and developers are here to assist you.

• Pricing: Basic auth features are free for unlimited users with the Community plan. Advanced features start at $125 per month, with additional fees for managed cloud hosting.
• Setup Time: As little as five minutes. 
• Customization: FusionAuth provides a back end GUI and API-based customization too. You have the option to design themes and designate them per tenant or application, thereby personalizing the user experience. 
• Migration: FusionAuth's documentation encompasses numerous migration techniques and data sources, along with implementation and unique considerations. It supports any password hashing scheme. 
• Hosting: Options for both self-hosting or single-tenant managed cloud are available. High-availability, database replication, 99.99% uptime SLAs, complete infrastructure customization.

Key Features: Developer-centric, backed by engineering support, private cloud hosting, and overall cost-effectiveness.

WorkOS

WorkOS is a platform that aims to make your application enterprise-ready with minimal effort. By using just a few lines of code, you can add enterprise features to your application. It provides a unified interface that simplifies enterprise integrations and supports multiple programming languages and environments.

• Pricing: $125 per month for a single SSO or Directory Sync connection.
• Setup Time: While WorkOS emphasizes its ability to add features quickly, it is important to note that the company offers more than just authentication capabilities. However, it is worth mentioning that the initial setup process may require a significant amount of time, especially if you choose to include additional options.
• Customization: Limited, though WorkOS does offer admin portal branding.
• Migration: WorkOS does not specify methods for migrating from other auth providers.
• Hosting: Multi-tenant only. No self-hosted solution. No infrastructure control.

‍Key Features: WorkOS focuses solely on the enterprise. You don’t have to be an enterprise-level company to use it. Rather, its aim is for those companies that will sell to enterprise customers.

Amazon Cognito

Amazon Cognito, an AWS service, aims to streamline user sign-up, sign-in, and access control for web and mobile applications. It facilitates sign-in via social identity providers like Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon, along with enterprise identity providers using SAML 2.0. Additionally, Cognito is built to manage substantial user bases, ensuring scalability and resilience. In comparison to alternative providers, it demands fewer setup resources, which can be advantageous in terms of efficiency.

• Pricing: The pricing structure of the system begins with a free tier, but it involves calculating your own costs based on monthly active users (MAUs), which can be complex and potentially confusing.
• Setup Time: Amazon Cognito boasts a relatively swift setup process facilitated by a setup wizard. Developers can expect to complete the setup in less than an hour with guided instructions.
• Customization: When it comes to customization, Amazon Cognito offers limited options for modifying user interfaces (UIs), workflows, and data synchronization tasks. However, it does provide the ability to customize user pool workflows using AWS Lambda triggers and offers support for customizing user data synchronization and user profiles.
• Migration: If you need to migrate from another authentication provider to Cognito, AWS's Migration Hub provides a step-by-step process to transfer user data and configurations, simplifying the migration procedure.
• Hosting: It's worth noting that Amazon Cognito only supports multi-tenant hosting, which may restrict certain hosting requirements or preferences.

Key Features: One aspects of Cognito is its integration with other AWS services. It allows you to authenticate users and assign them IAM roles, granting controlled access to services like S3 directly. Additionally, Cognito operates in a serverless manner, enabling automatic scalability without the need for managing additional infrastructure components.

FrontEgg

Frontegg, like many other authentication providers, offers a reliable and scalable user management solution. However, it primarily caters to the needs of B2B SaaS applications, placing a significant emphasis on this particular market segment. Although Frontegg is a relatively new company, it has encountered some challenges during its growth, including a recent service outage. Despite hurdles, Frontegg's usage is steadily increasing among B2B SaaS businesses.

• Pricing: Frontegg offers pricing plans starting at $99 per month, catering to businesses with up to 1,000 users.
• Setup Time: Frontegg aims to have businesses up and running within hours rather than months.
• Customization: Frontegg provides the flexibility for custom styling, allowing businesses to tailor the user interface to their specific branding. Additionally, it supports the creation of custom admin portal modules for further customization options.
• Migration: When it comes to password migration, Frontegg supports the import of hashed passwords from popular encryption methods like Bcrypt, Scrypt, and Firebase.
• Hosting: Frontegg follows a multi-tenant hosting model, accommodating the needs of multiple businesses within a shared infrastructure.

Key Features: Frontegg is designed specifically for B2B SaaS applications and is often preferred by businesses looking to transition from Auth0. Its feature set is tailored to meet the unique requirements of B2B SaaS companies, making it a popular choice in this market segment.

Open-Source Alternatives to Firebase

When exploring alternatives to Firebase, it's important to consider open-source options, especially for single-tenant or private cloud hosting. One notable provider in this space is FusionAuth, which stands out as the only major provider allowing for self-hosted or single-tenant cloud hosting.

Keycloak was mentioned earlier, as it specifically caters to complex enterprise environments.

Here are some other open-source alternatives worth mentioning:

1. Authelia: Authelia acts as a layer in front of services with their own authentication systems, providing enhanced functionality similar to .htaccess. It is not an SSO provider itself but offers additional authentication capabilities.
2. Authentik: If simplicity is a priority, Authentik is a compelling choice. It focuses on ease of use and supports full OAuth and SAML integration, including applications that lack native support for SSO.
3. Hanko: Hanko offers an easy-to-use authentication platform with support for biometrics. It allows you to start using it for free, and when you move into production, plans start from as little as $9 per month.
4. Supertokens: Supertokens is an open-source authentication solution that provides self-hosted login pages with a prebuilt user interface. The company has raised a significant $300 million fund from its users, but it's worth noting that its authentication options are somewhat limited.
5. Ory.sh: Ory is another open-source alternative to Firebase. It emphasizes modularity, allowing you to add or remove authentication options as needed.

Key Features: Robustness security features, including MFA and SSO, and extensive customization capabilities. Despite this, concerns around pricing and post-acquisition support have driven some customers to consider alternatives.

Considering these open-source alternatives can provide you with greater control, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, especially if single-tenant or private cloud hosting is important to your requirements. It's essential to evaluate each option's features, compatibility, and community support to determine the best fit for your specific needs.

Our Preference

It's important to note that we at FusionAuth are biased, but we have good reason for it. Our service is created 'by devs, for devs,' ensuring that you speak with the same developers who built the product when you need support.

Many of the newer providers on the market fall victim to their own success.When smaller companies get acquired by larger ones for huge amounts of money, they’ll often raise their prices to help justify the acquisition cost. That leaves developers like you footing the bill for their decisions.

FusionAuth was built without any outside investments and is a profitable company. Most of our team is made up of senior developers from a variety of different companies, meaning they have the experience to support your needs.

User authentication is a complex system that requires management. Allow us to provide the support you need and let's build something amazing. Sign up for the Community plan today.