If you’re a mobile app developer, you might be aware of Firebase, Google’s mobile application development platform. Or, if you’re an enterprise systems developer, you might be mindful of Google Cloud Platform (GCP), which is a broad suite of cloud products and services.

After differentiating between Firebase and GCP, you must be thinking about why we are talking this here. Well, both of the platforms can be used without the prior knowledge of the other, but there are certain aspects where these platforms overlap. The experience of both platforms can be used effectively in two scenarios. First is, if you want to expand backend infrastructure beyond what Firebase provides by default; and second, if you’re going to build a mobile app on top of your existing infrastructure in GCP. There are certain GCP products integrated with Firebase infrastructure to ease app development.

Let’s first put both Google’s offerings into a proper definition,

Firebase – The app development   

Firebase is Google’s mobile platform that helps you quickly develop high-quality apps and grow your business. It enables developers to build apps for different platforms such as iOS, Android, and Web Apps.

• It helps the user build apps for their use case to grow the user base.
• It is used by client-side app developers, both web and mobile.
• It can be used for building a new mobile app and augmenting an existing app with new functionalities.

Google Cloud Platform – A Cloud Services Suite

Google Cloud Platform is a suite of cloud computing services that runs on the same infrastructure that Google uses internally for its end-user products, such as Google Search, Gmail, and YouTube.

• It is used to access Google’s infrastructure (Compute, Storage, Networking, Data Analytics, ad Machine Learning) via the internet.
• It is used by backend and server-side developers.
• It can be used for building software leveraging Google’s core infrastructure, data analytics, and machine learning.

What do Firebase and GCP have in common?

Three integrated products

Firebase and GCP are integrated with three products, i.e., Cloud Firestore, Cloud Functions, and Cloud Storage. These products exist in the cloud, as the name suggests, simply exposed to client-side developers via Firebase.

Cloud Storage is a scalable file storage system.
Cloud Firestore is a scalable real-time NoSQL database.
Cloud Functions provides serverless compute infrastructure for event-driven programming.

Manage projects on any platform

When a large team is working on various aspects of app development, it is not a cup of tea to manage projects. While signing for any platform, each account can have multiple projects, which are like folders or directories. You can add both Firebase and GCP products to a project.   

Access Control

When integrating different platforms, it becomes necessary to provide control to ensure security. Users can set role-based access controls at the project level. One can then restrict and permit individuals or groups to perform actions across both platforms.  

And also Account

Firebase platform and Google Cloud Platform both use Google Accounts. So, if you have one, you can access both the platforms.