Google Firebase vs IBM SoftLayer comparison

The compared Google and IBM solutions aren't in the same category. Google is ranked #5 in ISI , with an average rating of 8.5, and holds a 3.4% mindshare in the category. IBM is ranked #22 in PCSS , and holds a 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Google Firebase

Read 48 Google Firebase reviews

3,473 Views
3,438 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

IBM SoftLayer

Read 2 IBM SoftLayer reviews

256 Views
159 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Google Firebase

IBM SoftLayer

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Google Firebase and IBM SoftLayer based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Akamai and others in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS).

To learn more, read our detailed Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Report (Updated: October 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

October 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 873,003 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Google Firebase

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (5th)

IBM SoftLayer

Average Rating

8.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Public Cloud Storage Services (22nd)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Cloud Services solutions, they serve different purposes. Google Firebase is designed for Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) and holds a mindshare of 3.4%, down 7.1% compared to last year.
IBM SoftLayer, on the other hand, focuses on Public Cloud Storage Services, holds 0.8% mindshare, up 0.2% since last year.

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Google Firebase	3.4%
Amazon AWS	16.9%
Microsoft Azure	13.5%
Other	66.2%

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

Public Cloud Storage Services Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM SoftLayer	0.8%
Amazon S3	13.8%
Amazon S3 Glacier	13.4%
Other	72.0%

Public Cloud Storage Services

Featured Reviews

Shravan Revanna

Vice President at E-Cell Ramaiah

Simple to get started with and offers integration features in multiple programming languages

The product provides integration features in multiple languages, such as Python, JavaScript, Golang, and all other languages. Google Firebase has documentation, which might seem a bit confusing, but one with decent knowledge can easily explore and get started with Firebase quickly. Before jumping into any cloud infrastructure, the tool should analyze how much it would cost to run the database. Google Firebase provides a certain number of reads and writes per day, which is approximately 40,000 reads and writes. If there are more than 200 to 300 active users per day, there will be plenty of reads and writes to the database. In such a case, one can't use Google Firebase and has to upgrade to Spark, which is where it is based on usage. The tool is fairly simple to get started with. Utilize all the features can get very complicated. One must be a pretty good developer who has a lot of experience to be able to utilize the best features. It gets really complicated over time. The basic functionality and basic usage are easy to use and easy to get started. There are plenty of deprecated versions, and frequently upgrading them causes inconvenience. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

Read full review

reviewer1032702

Global Principal Cloud Architect at NTT DATA

Stable with excellent speed and agility

The most valuable aspect of the solution is simply to have the ability to host in a cloud form and out of the data center - the IBM big iron solution. It's the speed and the agility that really sell SoftLayer. The ELT versus ETL extract, transform and load versus extract, load, and then transform, the ELT method is what really sells SoftLayer. The ability to extract act from your current location, load into your future location, with limited change, and then be able to take the transfer actions slowly and methodically after you're in your new location is the part that really makes this awesome. The stability and scalability are quite good.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Google Firebase supports all types of authentication."

"I would recommend Google Firebase for its cost-effectiveness, availability, and ease of deployment."

"The main feature for us is that the tools are all in one place and that you don't need to bother with the backend system and the infrastructure."

"Google Firebase is my top option, and I do not currently find any other competitors that match its offering."

"The Realtime Database feature is the most important for us since we are able to see changes in the database the moment they are happening."

"The main part that I like about Firebase is that it provides command line tools."

"Its initial setup process is easy."

"It has security rules to control database read/write operations in real-time."

More Google Firebase pros

"The stability is the solution's most valuable aspect for our organization."

"The ELT versus ETL extract, transform and load versus extract, load, and then transform, the ELT method is what really sells SoftLayer."

Cons

"The product is complicated for beginners to understand."

"Their technical support needs to be enhanced with more support for customers."

"The product is not that cheap."

"We have numerous projects for mobile application development, and we have shifted from Google Firebase to Supabase because there is a fixed price for Supabase."

"In terms of DevOps, such as CI/CD deployments and integrating webhooks with GitHub, GitLab, or other platforms, Firebase does not offer those capabilities at that level."

"I would like to see faster data migration and some support for other languages in the next release."

"The customization options for password resetting are limited. The process requires additional steps and coding to make it user-friendly. While Google Firebase works well for the login page, password resetting and user verification redirect users to a separate interface, which is not very user-friendly."

"The initial setup is not exactly straightforward."

More Google Firebase cons

"For us, the versioning was an issue."

"The interface is hard to use for us. It should be simplified."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Google Firebase is an expensive solution."

"The monthly cost is based on writing data and queries to the database."

"It is an expensive tool."

"It is not easy to calculate the cost per copy, use or if the load rose dramatically we did not know how that would impact the final price."

"They have a free tier that will cover most projects. For more intensive use, you pay as you use it, but the price is very cheap."

"I rate the price of Google Firebase a four out of five."

"The price of Google Firebase is very good."

"The solution's price is based on the number of consumers."

More Google Firebase pricing and cost advice

Information not available

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

873,003 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

University

10%

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	29
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	8

No data available

Questions from the Community

How does Microsoft Azure compare to Google Firebase?

I would recommend Google Firebase instead of Microsoft Azure, simply for the array of features that it has to offer. In particular, the Firebase library grants you access to a shared data structure...

See all answers

Looking to compare Google Firebase, Amazon AWS, and Microsoft Azure

We like Google Firebase hosting and authentication and also the excellent cloud functionality. Our team found the flexibility of handling and dealing with the database through EDL to be very useful...

See all answers

What do you like most about Google Firebase?

Google Analytics for Firebase is the best feature of the solution.

See all answers

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Comparisons

Microsoft Azure vs Google Firebase

Compared 39% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Google Firebase

Compared 20% of the time

DigitalOcean vs Google Firebase

Compared 14% of the time

Alibaba Cloud vs Google Firebase

Compared 8% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs Google Firebase

Compared 5% of the time

More Google Firebase Competitors

Oracle Cloud Software Appliance vs IBM SoftLayer

Compared 39% of the time

Amazon S3 Glacier vs IBM SoftLayer

Compared 32% of the time

Amazon AWS vs IBM SoftLayer

Compared 29% of the time

More IBM SoftLayer Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Google Firebase

October 2025

Download Google Firebase product report

Buyer's Guide

Public Cloud Storage Services

October 2025

Download IBM SoftLayer product report

Also Known As

No data available

CloudLayer

Overview

Google Firebase is a stable, reliable, and scalable mobile platform that enables you to quickly develop apps, accelerate them, and monitor their performance.

With Google Firebase You Can

Build and run successful apps
Scale globally
Monitor app quality and performance with little effort
Boost user engagement

Google Firebase Features:

Crashlytic
Automatic updates
Fast and easy deployment
Access to Cloud Firestore
Multi-platform sign-in authentication
Flexible drop-in UI
Real-time database
Remote configuration
Firebase machine learning
Cloud messaging
Advanced message targeting
Push messages
Error monitoring

SDKs supported by Google Firebase:

Web SDK
iOS SDK
Android SDK
Admin SDK

Benefits of Google Firebase:

Fast implementation: Google Firebase makes it possible for you to set up your authentication system quickly, using minimal code.
Comprehensive security: With Google Firebase, your systems remain secured; It is backed by Google Sign-in, Chrome Password Manager, and also Smart Lock.
Machine learning capabilities: Firebase offers machine learning capabilities that help you deploy and train custom models.
Eliminate the need to manage servers: Because Google Firebase offers cloud functions, it enables you to run your mobile backend code without having to also manage your servers.
Authentication for any platform: Google’s Firebase authentication makes the sign-in process easier by providing an end-to-end identity solution that works with any platform.
Customized notifications: With cloud messaging, you can customize alerts, defining how and when they are sent, what sounds they should make, and can also select the expiration date for each message. In addition, it gives you the ability to track custom conversion events.
Fast and secure web hosting: Firebase makes it possible for you to have easy and secure web hosting with fast content delivery. Firebase hosting also provides free SSL certificates.
Cloud storage: With Google Firebase you have access to cloud storage that supports robust uploads and downloads, can handle user-generated content, and provides simple and intuitive access control.
Developer-friendly: Developers prefer to use Firebase because it lets them focus on creating frontend code for mobile applications rather than having to concentrate on backend code.

Reviews from Real Users

PeerSpot user Nilakshi S., technical team lead at AuthentiCode says, “The solution is very stable and very reliable. There aren't any bugs or glitches.”

"What I like most about Google Firebase is that it's one of the easier options to host a website or app quickly," says Craig F., application development manager at a financial services firm.

A senior developer at a consultancy says, “The documentation for Google Firebase is great. Also, what I like about it is the integration to Android, which is the reason I went with Firebase.”

Google

SoftLayer provides cloud infrastructure as a service from a growing number of data centers and network points of presence around the world. Our customers range from Web startups to global enterprises.

Products and services include bare metal and virtual servers, networking, turnkey big data solutions, private cloud solutions, and more. Our unique advantages include the industry's first Network-Within-a-Network topology for true out-of-band access, and an easy-to-use customer portal and robust API for full remote-access of all product and service management options.

IBM

Sample Customers

Fabulous, Pic Collage, Shazam, SkyScanner

Whogohost Ltd., Skypicker, Infinity Computers and Communications Company, Grace Co. Ltd., Keyword, Uvionics Tech, Tennis Australia, immixGroup, Salesbox, Cxense ASA, Avnet Inc., Komsomolskaya Pravda, Seekr

Buyer's Guide

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

October 2025

Download Free Report

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Akamai and others in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS). Updated: October 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

873,003 professionals have used our research since 2012.

We monitor all Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.