Firebase Studio shut down March 2026 and Spark plan forced migrations to pay-as-you-go Blaze. Compare free alternatives with exact tier limits: Supabase, Appwrite, PocketBase, Nhost, Convex, Back4App, Hasura.

Firebase Alternatives

Firebase — Google's all-in-one Backend-as-a-Service — is facing developer trust issues in 2026. Firebase Studio was shut down on March 19, 2026 (accessible until March 2027 for migration). In February 2026, Spark plan projects using legacy *.appspot.com Cloud Storage buckets were forced to upgrade to Blaze (pay-as-you-go) or lose access — with no hard billing caps to prevent runaway charges.

Developer sentiment is increasingly negative: "building on Google products is always a gamble." The Spark free tier still exists for new projects, but the pattern of forced migrations and product shutdowns is driving developers to open-source, self-hostable alternatives.

Below are the best free Firebase alternatives, compared by what you actually get for free — exact storage, MAU, bandwidth, and function limits. Not marketing copy.

Limits Reduced

Cloud Storage for Firebase now requires the pay-as-you-go Blaze plan, in effect from February 3, 2026. Projects on the no-cost Spark plan lose access to all Cloud Storage buckets, including default buckets; console access redirects to an upgrade page and API calls return 402 or 403. Provisioning a new default bucket also requires Blaze. Source ↗

Before: Spark plan included Cloud Storage with a *.appspot.com default bucket and no card required: 5 GB stored, 1 GB downloaded/day, 20,000 uploads/day, 50,000 downloads/day
After: Any Cloud Storage access requires the Blaze plan and a billing account. No-cost usage continues on Blaze: a legacy *.appspot.com default bucket keeps 5 GB stored, 1 GB downloaded/day, 20,000 uploads/day, 50,000 downloads/day; default buckets created after September 2024 are *.firebasestorage.app and follow Google Cloud Storage pricing with its Always Free tier in US-CENTRAL1, US-EAST1 and US-WEST1. Other Spark limits unchanged (Firestore, Auth, Functions, Hosting)

Top Alternatives

Superseded: As of 2026-09-03, supabase.com/pricing reads: The free tier includes unlimited API requests, 50,000 monthly active users, 500 MB database size, 5 GB egress, 1 GB file storage. Free projects are paused after 1 week of inactivity. Paid plans include $10/mo in compute credits. We are not publishing our stored Supabase terms beside it — our own pricing change record, discovered 2026-09-03, names them as the previous ones. Read what we recorded ↓

Convex Free stable

Reactive backend — 1M function calls/month, 0.5 GB database + vector storage, 1 GB file storage, real-time sync

Open-source BaaS — 75K MAU, 2 GB storage, 750K function executions/month, 5 GB bandwidth, 1 database, 1 bucket and 2 functions per project. Limit of 2 projects. Projects pause after 1 week of inactivity

Open-source Firebase alternative with Postgres + Hasura GraphQL — 1 GB database, 1 GB storage, 5 GB bandwidth free

PocketBase Free

Open-source backend in a single Go binary — SQLite database, real-time subscriptions, built-in auth (email, OAuth2), file storage (S3-compatible), REST API. Completely free and self-hosted, no vendor lock-in. Single executable, no dependencies

Hasura Cloud Free stable

Instant GraphQL API engine over any database — Hasura DDN Free plan: unlimited API requests and unlimited concurrent users, unlimited models at any scale. 1 supergraph developer, 15-minute observability retention. Auto-generates GraphQL APIs from Postgres, SQL Server, BigQuery via database/code/API connectors

Back4App Free stable

Parse-based backend platform — free tier: 25K API requests/month, 250 MB database, 1 GB file storage, 1 GB transfer, up to 5 apps. REST + GraphQL APIs

Free Tier Comparison

What you actually get for free on each platform. Firebase Spark is generous on paper but lacks billing caps on Blaze — one misconfigured query can cost hundreds.

Platform Database File Storage Auth (MAUs) Functions Bandwidth Real-time License
Firebase (Spark) 1 GiB Firestore5 GB50K2M invocations/mo10 GB/mo Proprietary
Supabase 500 MB Postgres1 GB50K500K edge fn5 GB✅ (200 conn) Apache-2.0
Appwrite Cloud Included2 GB75K750K exec/mo5 GB BSD-3
PocketBase Unlimited (SQLite)UnlimitedUnlimitedUnlimited MIT
Nhost 1 GB Postgres1 GBIncludedIncluded5 GB✅ (GraphQL) MIT
Convex 0.5 GB1 GBIncluded1M calls/moIncluded Proprietary
Back4App 250 MB1 GBIncluded1 GB✅ (Live Query) Proprietary
Hasura Cloud BYO PostgresUnlimited requests (DDN Free)✅ (subscriptions) Apache-2.0

PocketBase limits are "unlimited" because it's self-hosted — actual limits depend on your server hardware. Hasura is a GraphQL engine that sits on top of your own Postgres database. Appwrite projects pause after 1 week of inactivity on the free tier. Firebase Spark has no billing caps if you upgrade to Blaze.

Quick Comparison

Tool Free Tier Details Stability
Supabase Free As of 2026-09-03, supabase.com/pricing reads: The free tier includes unlimited API requests, 50,000 monthly active users, 500 MB… Our stored Supabase terms are superseded and withheld. caution
discovered 2026-09-03 restructured
Convex Free Reactive backend — 1M function calls/month, 0.5 GB database + vector storage, 1 GB file storage, real-time sync stable
Appwrite Cloud Free Open-source BaaS — 75K MAU, 2 GB storage, 750K function executions/month, 5 GB bandwidth, 1 database, 1 bucket and 2 fun... caution
discovered 2026-09-05 reduced
Nhost Free Open-source Firebase alternative with Postgres + Hasura GraphQL — 1 GB database, 1 GB storage, 5 GB bandwidth free caution
discovered 2026-09-07 restricted
PocketBase Free Open-source backend in a single Go binary — SQLite database, real-time subscriptions, built-in auth (email, OAuth2), fil...
Hasura Cloud Free Instant GraphQL API engine over any database — Hasura DDN Free plan: unlimited API requests and unlimited concurrent use... stable
Back4App Free Parse-based backend platform — free tier: 25K API requests/month, 250 MB database, 1 GB file storage, 1 GB transfer, up ... stable

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