Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Cloud Firestore VS Flutter

Compare Cloud Firestore VS Flutter and see what are their differences

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Cloud Firestore logo Cloud Firestore

Use our flexible, scalable NoSQL cloud database to store and sync data for client- and server-side development.

Flutter logo Flutter

Build beautiful native apps in record time 🚀
  • Cloud Firestore Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-02-07
  • Flutter Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-12-14

Cloud Firestore features and specs

  • Real-time Updates
    Cloud Firestore offers real-time data synchronization, which ensures that any changes to the database are immediately reflected across all connected clients.
  • Scalability
    Firestore can handle massive amounts of data and traffic, scaling automatically as your app grows without requiring manual intervention.
  • Ease of Use
    Firestore provides a simple and intuitive API, which is easy to use for developers, especially those already familiar with Firebase services.
  • Offline Support
    Cloud Firestore allows your application to remain functional and retain data even when offline, synchronizing changes when the connection is restored.
  • Security
    Firestore uses Firebase Authentication and security rules to protect data, which is crucial for ensuring that your data is safe and that only authorized users can access it.
  • Flexible Data Model
    It allows you to store data in a flexible, hierarchical structure which can adapt to various use cases and data requirements.

Possible disadvantages of Cloud Firestore

  • Pricing Complexity
    Firestore uses a pay-as-you-go pricing model based on operations and data storage, which can become expensive and complex to manage as application usage scales.
  • Query Limitations
    While Firestore supports a range of queries, there are limitations compared to SQL-based databases, such as the lack of JOIN operations and complex queries.
  • Data Hierarchy Constraints
    Though it offers flexibility, the JSON-like data structure may require a rethink of data architecture, especially for complex relational data models.
  • Vendor Lock-in
    Using Cloud Firestore ties your application to Google's ecosystem, which can make it challenging to migrate to another platform or database in the future.
  • Learning Curve
    Developers new to NoSQL or real-time databases might encounter a learning curve, as Firestore’s data modeling and querying concepts differ from traditional relational databases.

Flutter features and specs

  • Cross-Platform Development
    Flutter allows you to create applications that run on multiple platforms, including iOS, Android, web, and desktop, using a single codebase, thereby significantly reducing development time and effort.
  • Hot Reload
    The Hot Reload feature allows developers to see the results of their code changes almost instantly without a full restart, boosting productivity and making the debugging process more efficient.
  • Rich Set of Pre-Built Widgets
    Flutter offers a comprehensive collection of customizable widgets that follow modern design guidelines, allowing developers to build attractive and consistent UIs effortlessly.
  • Performance
    Flutter applications are compiled directly to native ARM code, which can result in superior performance comparable to native applications.
  • Strong Community Support
    As an open-source project, Flutter has a large and active community, providing abundant resources, third-party libraries, and plugins to accelerate development.

Possible disadvantages of Flutter

  • Large App Size
    Flutter apps tend to have a larger file size compared to native apps, which could be a concern for users with limited storage space or slow internet connections.
  • Limited Ecosystem
    While Flutter is growing rapidly, its ecosystem is not yet as mature as those of more established frameworks, meaning that certain third-party libraries, tools, and plugins might be lacking or underdeveloped.
  • Platform-Specific APIs
    Despite its cross-platform capabilities, Flutter may require the development of custom platform-specific code for certain functionalities, which could complicate the development process.
  • Learning Curve
    Flutter uses Dart, a programming language that is less commonly used compared to JavaScript, Java, or Swift, which may result in a steeper learning curve for new developers.
  • State Management Complexity
    Managing states effectively in large applications can be challenging in Flutter, potentially leading to convoluted code if not handled properly.

Analysis of Flutter

Overall verdict

  • Flutter is generally considered to be a good framework, particularly for developers who prioritize building cross-platform applications with a consistent look and feel across devices. Its performance is comparable to native applications, and its flexibility and ease of use make it a worthy choice for both beginners and experienced developers.

Why this product is good

  • Flutter is a UI toolkit developed by Google that allows developers to create natively compiled applications for mobile, web, and desktop from a single codebase. Its primary strengths include fast development cycles enabled by features like hot reload, a rich set of pre-designed widgets that follow Google's Material Design guidelines, and its use of Dart language which offers excellent performance. Furthermore, Flutter has a strong community and backing by Google, ensuring regular updates and long-term support.

Recommended for

  • Developers looking to create applications for multiple platforms from a single codebase.
  • Those who appreciate material design and need a rich set of customizable widgets.
  • Teams that value rapid iteration and hot reload features for quicker testing and updates.
  • Projects that require good community support and regular updates from a major tech company.

Cloud Firestore videos

What is a NoSQL Database? How is Cloud Firestore structured? | Get to know Cloud Firestore #1

More videos:

  • Review - Cloud Firestore Data Modeling (Google I/O'19)

Flutter videos

beginning of flutter youtube channel

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Cloud Firestore and Flutter)
NoSQL Databases
100 100%
0% 0
Development Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Developer Tools
17 17%
83% 83
Databases
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Cloud Firestore and Flutter

Cloud Firestore Reviews

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Flutter Reviews

Explore 9 Top Eclipse Alternatives for 2024
With Flutter 2’s release in 2021, developers now have full support to construct intuitive Windows apps, marking another milestone in Flutter’s inclusive cross-platform vision.
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Top 10 Flutter Alternatives for Cross-Platform App Development
So, above are some of the Flutter alternatives you can consider for your upcoming projects. To make the right selection, you should analyze the characteristics of your applications, which will help you make the most appropriate selection. You can also get in touch with a Flutter development company to go with the right option.
Top 5 Flutter Alternatives for Cross-Platform Development
Qt’s native capabilities contribute to its good app performance and size. Compared to Flutter, Flutter apps tend to be larger than native apps. However, the framework’s features and language are designed to boost Flutter app performance.
Source: www.miquido.com
Exploring 15 Powerful Flutter Alternatives
Beyond official Flutter built by Google, Flutter Community is an open-source fork-adding capability and component. Flutter Community has specifically expanded device testing coverage beyond Google’s in-house capabilities. With contributors volunteering devices for testing worldwide, Flutter Community tracks compatibility across over 3000 device variants spanning multiple...
Top 10 Android Studio Alternatives For App Development
Flutter is a framework that is used by stack developers to build multi-platform apps from a single codebase. It is an open-source project which was developed by Google to build app UI.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Flutter should be more popular than Cloud Firestore. It has been mentiond 363 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Cloud Firestore mentions (46)

  • How to write clean, typed Firestore code
    Ever since I started using Firestore more than 7 years ago, I have been wanting to find a better way to type my code and reduce boilerplate. In this article I will describe my journey, and how I finally found a way to write clean, strongly-typed code with abstractions that are easy to use and adopt in any Typescript project. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Unlocking the Power of JSON Patch
    Weird, you work at Mozilla and haven't heard of JSON in DBs. A few resources to get you started: https://www.mongodb.com/ https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/datatype-json.html https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore. - Source: Hacker News / 8 months ago
  • Are Sync Engines The Future of Web Applications?
    If you've been following trends in the web-dev world, you'd know that sync engines have been a centrepiece in several of them, namely: progressive web apps, offline-first apps, and the lately trending term: local-first software. You might have even looked into some of the databases that offer a built-in sync engine such as PouchDb or online services that do the same (e.g., Firestore). I have too, but my general... - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • 5 Best Instant Messaging APIs
    Firebase is an app development platform backed by Google that famously replaces the need for a backend. It accomplishes this by providing developers with a variety of services, including authentication, push notifications, and a database called Cloud Firestore that can be adapted to store and broadcast chat messages in realtime. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • How do you handle different user roles?
    Within the Firebase system, I use Firestore. To minimize queries of multiple collections ( keep server costs down ) I keep users in one collection. Within each user object I have a "roles" property that is a sub-object referencing the different roles available:. Source: over 1 year ago
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Flutter mentions (363)

  • 🚀 iOS vs Android Development: Which One Should You Learn First? (The Truth No One Tells You!)
    🎯 Still confused? Start with Flutter, which lets you build both iOS & Android apps with one codebase! Check it out here. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Writing and Reading NFC in Flutter | Comprehensive Guide
    Flutter provides robust support for NFC through third-party packages, making implementation seamless. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Building cost-effective AI-driven MVPs with Flutter development services
    Flutter is a powerful, popular, and open-source platform known for its developer-friendly environment, wide ecosystem of libraries, extensions and other tools. A key feature of Flutter app development services is that it promotes the development of cross-platform applications without needing to build or write two or three different codebases. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • How to Build a CRUD Application Using Flutter & Strapi
    In this tutorial, I'll show you how to build a full-featured mobile CRUD application with Flutter and Strapi 5. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • React v19 has been released
    I don't agree but if you're looking for something that renderers everything in a canvas it's called Flutter https://flutter.dev/, and strangely it's made by Google, even though Flutter's success means the end of scraping the web for search. - Source: Hacker News / 6 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Cloud Firestore and Flutter, you can also consider the following products

Firebase - Firebase is a cloud service designed to power real-time, collaborative applications for mobile and web.

React Native - A framework for building native apps with React

Redis - Redis is an open source in-memory data structure project implementing a distributed, in-memory key-value database with optional durability.

import.io - Import. io helps its users find the internet data they need, organize and store it, and transform it into a format that provides them with the context they need.

Firebase Authentication - Application and Data, Application Utilities, and User Management and Authentication

Ionic Framework - A front-end SDK to develop applications with HTML5 , CSS3 and JavaScript.