Comparative Analysis of Backend-as-a-Service Solutions for React Native Mobile Applications: Firebase vs Supabase
Yazdankhah, Emad (2025)
2025
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025121737481
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025121737481
Tiivistelmä
This thesis compares Firebase and Supabase as Backend-as-a-Service (BaaS) solutions for React Native mobile applications through systematic implementation and comparative analysis. Using WordJotter, a bilingual vocabulary learning application developed with React Native and Expo, as the implementation case study, this research addresses four research questions concerning developer experience, cost structures, feature capabilities, and vendor lock-in implications.
The methodology employs structured implementation journals capturing time investment, technical decisions, problems encountered, and developer experience observations across eight Firebase sessions (~470 minutes) and five Supabase sessions (~301 minutes). Both platforms were implemented to achieve equivalent functionality, enabling direct comparison of authentication, database operations, and UI integration patterns.
Findings reveal that neither platform is universally superior. Firebase offers broader ecosystem integration, mature community support, and pay-as-you-go pricing flexibility, while Supabase provides more consistent API design, superior relational database capabilities through PostgreSQL, predictable subscription pricing, and significantly lower vendor lock-in risk due to its open-source foundation. Implementation time differences proved minimal (~9 minutes for equivalent scope), indicating comparable developer productivity. A critical finding identifies that neither platform adequately supports offline functionality for React Native applications using Expo managed workflow.
The research validates that service layer abstraction patterns effectively minimize platform-specific code in UI components, enabling potential future migration with contained effort regardless of initial platform choice. For applications with relational data patterns and long-term flexibility requirements, Supabase emerges as the recommended choice; for projects requiring extensive Google ecosystem integration and broader service capabilities, Firebase remains advantageous.
This thesis contributes three practical outcomes: a decision framework linking project requirements to platform strengths, validated architectural patterns demonstrating that service layer abstraction reduces vendor lock-in to minimal import path changes, and documented evidence that implementation productivity differences between major BaaS platforms are negligible for typical mobile applications.
The methodology employs structured implementation journals capturing time investment, technical decisions, problems encountered, and developer experience observations across eight Firebase sessions (~470 minutes) and five Supabase sessions (~301 minutes). Both platforms were implemented to achieve equivalent functionality, enabling direct comparison of authentication, database operations, and UI integration patterns.
Findings reveal that neither platform is universally superior. Firebase offers broader ecosystem integration, mature community support, and pay-as-you-go pricing flexibility, while Supabase provides more consistent API design, superior relational database capabilities through PostgreSQL, predictable subscription pricing, and significantly lower vendor lock-in risk due to its open-source foundation. Implementation time differences proved minimal (~9 minutes for equivalent scope), indicating comparable developer productivity. A critical finding identifies that neither platform adequately supports offline functionality for React Native applications using Expo managed workflow.
The research validates that service layer abstraction patterns effectively minimize platform-specific code in UI components, enabling potential future migration with contained effort regardless of initial platform choice. For applications with relational data patterns and long-term flexibility requirements, Supabase emerges as the recommended choice; for projects requiring extensive Google ecosystem integration and broader service capabilities, Firebase remains advantageous.
This thesis contributes three practical outcomes: a decision framework linking project requirements to platform strengths, validated architectural patterns demonstrating that service layer abstraction reduces vendor lock-in to minimal import path changes, and documented evidence that implementation productivity differences between major BaaS platforms are negligible for typical mobile applications.