Choosing a Parse Replacement - AWS or Firebase?

Solar2D General Questions/Discussion
#1

Hello all.  For a client project I’m working on, I have to decide whether to go with AWS or Firebase as a replacement for Parse.

I’m still wrapping my head around the client app’s usage, but so far it seems all I’ll need to be able to do is download files from a server.  i.e.  Download content in some arbitrary (zipped or otherwise) format.

I won’t be using any of the other fancier features these services provide.

So with that in mind, I’d love to hear opinions from other users here.  

TL;DR

If you had to choose, would you go with AWS or Firebase and why?

Note: I’m currently googling like mad and stumbled upon an interesting link:

I will share my findings here, but I hope this generates some discussion.

#2

I started implementing an App42 backend, but found the documentation to be incomplete, leading to some roadblocks. I’ve switched to PlayFab and find it to be well-documented and easy to use. So far so good.

#3

I have tested a bit with noobhub and autolan for p-v-p turn based play … because they were (free).

Also setup an AWS instance(not free) and a DigitalOcean droplet(not free) originally for Develephant’s GameServer and Coronium - which both looked promising - but are now defunct or not supported enough for me to use.  Not yet released an app yet with any of those, but they seem to work fine with simple turn based game…   but I am considering more strongly PlayFab or maybe Photon as Corona has plugins for those. 

here is another link I found  you or others might want to read if you have not already - (10 alternatives to parse) :

http://blog.soom.la/2016/02/top-10-parse-alternatives-game-backend.html

Hope to hear your findings … especially since I am not 100% sure which of these many choices I prefer.

Bob

#4

If its just downloading files, you’d probably want to use CloudFront or S3 (on AWS), but complexity increases depending on security needs.

https://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront

https://aws.amazon.com/s3

-enjoy

#5

@everyone,

Thanks for the replies.

I ended up going with AWS S3.  Initially, it was quite daunting looking, but once I signed up, and navigated the uber page of services to locate and set up a S3 bucket, it was quite easy to use.  

I never completed any tests with Firebase.  However, initially I thought it was for JSON data only (stored in a DB).  I think that was wrong.  More reading lead me to believe there is in fact a way to use Firebase to retrieve arbitrary files too.  That said, time is precious and I didn’t have the time (or energy) to puzzle out how to upload and later retrieve arbitrary data (think DLC in the form of images and other files.).

Summary: I went with AWS S3 and it works great for storing arbitrary file and downloading them via Corona.

#6

I started implementing an App42 backend, but found the documentation to be incomplete, leading to some roadblocks. I’ve switched to PlayFab and find it to be well-documented and easy to use. So far so good.

#7

I have tested a bit with noobhub and autolan for p-v-p turn based play … because they were (free).

Also setup an AWS instance(not free) and a DigitalOcean droplet(not free) originally for Develephant’s GameServer and Coronium - which both looked promising - but are now defunct or not supported enough for me to use.  Not yet released an app yet with any of those, but they seem to work fine with simple turn based game…   but I am considering more strongly PlayFab or maybe Photon as Corona has plugins for those. 

here is another link I found  you or others might want to read if you have not already - (10 alternatives to parse) :

http://blog.soom.la/2016/02/top-10-parse-alternatives-game-backend.html

Hope to hear your findings … especially since I am not 100% sure which of these many choices I prefer.

Bob

#8

If its just downloading files, you’d probably want to use CloudFront or S3 (on AWS), but complexity increases depending on security needs.

https://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront

https://aws.amazon.com/s3

-enjoy

#9

@everyone,

Thanks for the replies.

I ended up going with AWS S3.  Initially, it was quite daunting looking, but once I signed up, and navigated the uber page of services to locate and set up a S3 bucket, it was quite easy to use.  

I never completed any tests with Firebase.  However, initially I thought it was for JSON data only (stored in a DB).  I think that was wrong.  More reading lead me to believe there is in fact a way to use Firebase to retrieve arbitrary files too.  That said, time is precious and I didn’t have the time (or energy) to puzzle out how to upload and later retrieve arbitrary data (think DLC in the form of images and other files.).

Summary: I went with AWS S3 and it works great for storing arbitrary file and downloading them via Corona.