Firebase alternative

What Firebase is

Firebase (Google) provides Realtime Database and Cloud Firestore with security rules, authentication and client SDKs. Games use it by writing positions or state to the database and listening for changes, billed by usage.

Side by side

Checked September 2026 against public documentation. Tell us if something changed: contact@lannetech.ae.

Choose Firebase if…

• Your game is part of a larger app already on Firebase.
• Your multiplayer is asynchronous (turns hours apart, shared lists).

Choose Multiplayer API if…

• You want realtime positions without paying per write: they travel peer-to-peer.
• You need matchmaking, rooms, host migration and late-joiner catch-up built in.
• You want a predictable flat price instead of usage-based billing.

Moving from Firebase: what maps to what

• set(ref(db, 'games/x/players/uid'), pos) at 20 Hz → room.send(pos): peer-to-peer, not written or billed per update.
• Security rules on paths → declarative state rules on paths, plus things database rules do not express well: rate, delta_max, monotonic, attestation.
• onDisconnect() presence tricks → built-in presence and host migration.
• Firebase Auth anonymous users → guest accounts scoped to your game.
• Keep Firebase for the rest of your app if you like: the two coexist.

The concepts are covered in full in the documentation and in llms-full.txt, which a coding agent can use to do the port for you.

Try it in one call

curl -X POST https://multiplayerapi.com/v1/games \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"name":"My Game","preset":"realtime_arena"}'

Returns a public key, a secret key and a sandbox with 2 live rooms for 24 hours. No account, no card.