If you are reading this post, then I am sure you definitely knows about Firebase and you also want a alternative solution of Firebase. There are many reasons that developers want to switch from Firebase to something that is open source and self-hosted.
So we will discuss about Appwrite.
What is Appwrite?
Appwrite is a selfhosted and open source BaaS (Backend as a Service). Appwrite is available as a docker container for server. You can host it to your own server. You can use Appwrite in Android, Flutter, iOS, React, Vue, Server etc. You get almost everything needed for backend such as User Authentication, Database, Storage, Fuctions etc.
Appwrite is really a Firebase alternative?
To understand this better, first we need to understand Firebase core features. Firebase provides following cores features, which are:-
- Authentication
- Realtime Database
- Firestore Database
- Storage
- Hosting
- Cloud Functions
- Firebase Cloud Messaging
- Firebase Crashlytics
- Analytics
However, It provides various other features and services such as Firebase ML, Remote Config etc. Firebase is backed by Google So it got the advantages of Google services.
You also don’t need to do much configuration to use Authentication services. Firebase itself provides email and phone number verification services. For example, your user would receive otp on their phone.
On the other hand if we talk about Appwrite, it is selfhosted. There are certain configurations you need to perform. For example, if you want your users to receive email OTP (One-Time Password) when they register, you will need to configure SMTP settings to enable email delivery. Additionally, if you want to send OTP as SMS or text messages, you will need to integrate with third-party services like Twilio. It’s important to note that utilizing third-party services like Twilio may result in additional costs.
However, There are some features not provided by Appwrite. You need to rely on some other third party services for these features.
- Cloud Messaging
- You can not excute functions externally.
- Analytics
- Crashlytics
But Appwrite growing very fast. It attracted many developers. We may expect these features in the future releases of Appwrite.