Firebase Databases

In 2014, Google acquired a company called Firebase, which develops an API that stores data from mobile and web applications on a unified cloud. Since it was acquired, Google has built it into a multipurpose app development platform. Personally, I’ve used Firebase as an alternative to building a backend on some projects I’ve built, and in this post I’ll show how to store data on your own Firebase database.

This is the first page you see when you land on the Firebase website. To begin creating a backend for your project, you can either click Go to console in the upper right corner, or Get started right in the middle of the page. If you want more information on the capabilities of Firebase beyond this startup guide, go into the docs on the top navigation bar.

When you dive into creating a new project in Firebase, you land on this page. Each time you create a new project on this platform, it saves that project here, where you can navigate to each individual backend to tinker with whatever your application needs.

After creating a project, naming it, and giving some basic information, you’re sent to the main overview screen. Here you have the option to build out different types of databases, data storage, or even user authentication if you’re developing an app that’ll need multiple user information! When I build out a backend, I opt for the Realtime Database option. As the Firebase docs explain, this allows you to sync your data across platforms in real time, and stays available even when your app goes offline.

When you begin your realtime database setup, you’re given this option for the security rules of your database. I usually start in locked mode, since these rules are able to be altered whenever you’d like during development.

After the database has been created, you’re shown this screen. To use the database in your application, just click the link you see in the middle of your screen to copy it to your clipboard and paste that to your app’s fetch request. You can then create new branches in the database by pressing the plus button that’s next to null, this branch can be used in any requests you make as well!