Firebase vs Google Analytics 360

Life was rather simple when marketers had to deal with only one device (desktop) and a few marketing channels. Nowadays, the plethora of devices, channels and analytics technologies makes one’s mind spin, and as soon as you think you have it all figured out, a new platform or a new technology pops up. Welcome Firebase, a unified app platform for Android, iOS and mobile web development, including Firebase Analytics, a powerful analytics solution for mobile apps.

But wait, Google already offers Google Analytics for mobile apps, so what do we do?

We’ve come up with this infographic and few notes to help you navigate the two platforms and choose what’s best for your environment (for additional details, please see Google’s help article on Best Practices for mobile apps).

Additional Considerations

What if I have an app and a website? The recommendation is to use both Firebase Analytics, as well as integrating Firebase with Google Tag Manager to send Firebase events to Google Analytics. You can also link Firebase Analytics directly with Google Analytics in order to see Firebase Analytics reports within your Google Analytics user interface; but this linked property cannot be enabled with 360 features (SLA) and cannot be used in roll-up reporting.
Firebase is deeply integrated with Google Cloud Platform, e.g. Firebase Storage is backed by Google Cloud Storage, shared admin and billing settings, etc.
Note that while Firebase Analytics is free, Firebase has its own pricing structure (separate from Analytics 360).
Pricing and hit limits on the free version of Firebase Analytics? Firebase Analytics is a free feature at all pricing tiers of the Firebase platform. There are no pricing tiers or limits on the volume of event hits in Firebase Analytics. There is also no sampling of data in Firebase Analytics. Firebase offers different pricing plans to allow expansion of some features, such as Firebase File Storage (for user generated content like photos). If you exceed any plan limit in any month (for example, you exceed the free plan’s 5 GB limit for Firebase File Storage due to users storing more photos than your plan allows) your app will be turned off to prevent any further resource usage and additional charges. You can upgrade, downgrade or cancel at any time.

Got Questions?

If you have any questions about mobile app analytics, don’t hesitate to reach out to us!

Feras Alhlou

Chief Technology Officer Feras Alhlou previously co-founded E-Nor in 2003 and served as President until its acquisition by Cardinal Path in 2019. Feras is passionate about his work with some of the world’s most recognized brands and public sector organizations to deliver data-driven marketing value. A recognized thought leader on the Google Marketing tech stack, he has traveled the globe educating businesses, practitioners, and consultants, and he’s also co-author of Google Analytics Breakthrough: From Zero to Business Impact. Feras received a Masters of Engineering Management degree from the University of South Florida and a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tulsa. He is a Certified Web Analyst, Board Member for Red Cross Northern California, and a 3rd-degree black belt in Aikido.