Linux and Windows support

[cbenhagen]

Options are:

• C++ SDK
• Writing / Adopting existing dart-native implementations like firedart.

The second option might be harder but in the long run it might be easier to maintain.

Please show your support for this feature request by upvoting this idea. Thanks!

[stuartmorgan-g]

• C++ SDK

Note the following, from the documentation for that SDK:

Caution: Firebase C++ SDK desktop support is a beta feature. This feature is intended only for workflows during the development of your game, not for publicly shipping code.

I.e., it's an SDK for testing mobile games on desktop, rather than a desktop SDK.

[efraespada]

If Firebase C++ SDK desktop becomes stable, would it be integrated as expected?

[cbenhagen]

I guess pure Dart implementations would be the way to go then.

[cedvdb]

I'd say something lower level that all current sdk's can use would be the way to go. Wasm comes to mind

[salihgueler]

If we decide(e.g. I am planning to work on this) to tackle this, should we create separate issues per product and work on them accordingly?

[cbenhagen]

@salihgueler I think one meta issue and discussion in the PR would work as well but It's not up to me to decide. How do you plan to implement it?

[nilsreichardt]

An advantage of creating multiple tickets is that we can track which firebase package is how often requested.

[shivamdev-lgtm]

Is there any work being done on desktop support (other than MacOS)?

[creativecreatorormaybenot]

It seems like discussions cannot be used for linking to pull requests. I suggest creating individual issues for the packages and platforms.

[jlubeck]

Is there any progress here?

[dgurudot]

Any updates for windows and linux support?

[cedvdb]

The dart native option sounds like it has disadvantages:

• looks like a monumental task
• it's one more library doing the same thing as others, except in another language
• there is the c++ sdk, might as well work on that one which will also support other languages, not just dart

[tanzil114]

Can someone please give an update about the current status for Windows support. Not having windows support is causing a lot of issues for us, so need to know how long it will take for Windows support to be covered. Thanks!
cc: @Salakar

[shivamdev-lgtm]

I don't think it's coming anytime soon

[tanzil114]

Thanks. well, I hope it's added soon as not having Firebase support is a deal-breaker for windows on Flutter

[barbalex]

Our app has 33 dependencies. 3 do not have windows support yet. Two of them are not vital (geolocation). The only blocking dependency left that does not support windows is firebase.

[worldwidee]

almost we are in 2022 and there is no windows support. The Windows version of my app is waiting for 6 months because i built with firebase for all platforms. "firedart" extension is giving nothing to me

[IchordeDionysos]

You can build an abstraction for Firebase? And use the Firebase APIs :)

[cedvdb]

If firedart existed, it would allow for tree shaking of the firebase js, doesn't it ?

[ghost]

personnaly I used the REST API, firedart have some limitation.

[dgurudot]

It will do code forking and also any update to firebase requires pull and it is not a true stream which makes the app not responsive and real time

…

On Sep 12, 2021, at 3:41 PM, Dennis Kugelmann ***@***.***> wrote:  You can build an abstraction for Firebase? And use the Firebase APIs :) — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.

[ndevev]

Asking for Windows support.
Thanks.

[NonymousMorlock]

I thought we already had windows support, from v 2.11.0 changelog

[melWiss]

We as a community would like to understand why the delay, not blaming or anything. And is there anything we can help with? Like if everyone is spawning random packages to add this support, those will never be completed.

If there's a clear one repo to this support, documents, anything, clear roadmap, I believe that the community will be able to help more efficiently especially if there's also a clear leadership on this, we really want to help each other here.

[o-glethorpe]

Are you guys planning a big party for the 5-year anniversary?

[hitchcliff]

Linux support in 2025 please

[JamesFieldist]

And windows please!

[YesThatGy]

Throwing my voice in the din as part of the choir seeking Windows and Linux support!

[houxd]

Asking for Linux support. Tnx!

[twixel-io]

Another voice for Windows & Linux... Please!

[o-glethorpe]

This is ridiculous. Could the FlutterFire team please address this? If you guys are not going to implement this, please just say so.

[NonymousMorlock]

Dear Google

[jmohanasundaram]

Asking for Linux support

[JohnGalt1717]

At this point I'd just settle for Messaging on windows....

[YesThatGy]

Yes, this please?

If there is a reason why this cannot be implemented on Desktop platforms, can you please just let us know? Messaging apps is a key component to the function of our app and lack of this forces very, very awkward workarounds in order to support desktop clients.

It's painful, it's expensive, and as far as I can tell, it's also un-necessary.

[stMerlHin]

Hello everyone. I notice that the team is not even looking into this issue to provide me with an answer. I wanted an app that would work across all popular platforms, but I figured I'd have to wait a few years for an answer. So I looked for an alternative and found AWS Amplify. They currently support all Flutter-compatible platforms through their Flutter plugins. With "AWS Amplify," I migrated my database from a non-relational database to a relational database, but the Flutter client code to interact with my backend hasn't changed. I'm now using a hybrid architecture. What I miss most about Firebase is its cache management. But guess what? I plan to use Firebase for mobile apps and Amplify for desktop and web to take advantage of Firebase's powerful caching system and, in the meantime, run my app on desktop and web by replicating data from Firebase to the Amplify backend via a cloud function or something similar. Amplify also has a caching system with "dataStore," but it's only available for "Amplify Gen 1" and isn't really compatible with desktop and web.

AWS Amplify has many features that Firebase doesn't and is compatible with all other services offered by AWS. It's also open source.

[o-glethorpe]

This made me choose Electron for my next project. It sucks, as expected, but at least I can deliver all the features my client paid me for.
At this point, it seems to me that they dropped the ball when conceptualizing the "multi-platform" aspect of the Firebase Flutter SDK, in such a way that it can't be done unless a major rewrite happens first. Which looks like it will never happen, because their focus is AI now. The framework team itself seems to have been scaled back to a minimum—hence all the recent deprecations—so it's best to move on.
I once had a dream: to work fully with a Google stack—Angular, Firebase, Flutter, and Go where Firebase couldn't reach. Can you imagine if they had managed to make all of this work seamlessly together? But instead, what we got is a dysfunctional set of frameworks with poorly managed teams that don’t seem to talk to each other.

Now, for some projects, I have to ditch this amazing piece of tech that is Flutter and work with subpar tools like React Native, all because they messed it up.

[kito30]

Asking for Linux support

[richard457]

It depends, as of I knowledge offline doe not exist what you mean is that after an app woke up from offline firebase would still need internet to push notification to your app, same way if you come back online you would query notification you missed again.

[JohnGalt1717]

It doesn't depend. If you want notifications to be delivered while your app isn't running on Android, YOU MUST USE FIREBASE. There is no other way of doing so reliably.

Firebase integrates with Apple APNs and Web browsers as well. It doesn't work with Windows or Linux and as a result, causes you to have to have at least 2 packages in your flutter app that do the same thing.

This isn't guessing. This isn't even a question. You MUST use firebase for notifications on Android. Full stop. The only question is if you want to subject yourself to the horrible 3rd party support on Flutter to get away from firebase on other platforms.

Anything else? Ya, sure, don't use firebase. There's lots of alternatives. But push notifications? You MUST.

[o-glethorpe]

I do not understand why people choose Firebase, don't get me wrong, Firebase is awesome, but it has many downsides:

1. It is run by the corporation, which is a red flag. I will explain the last few months, MongoDB out of nowhere, and they closed their realm project
2. It is not open-source
3. Corporate never listen to small business
   I am writing this here because it cost me time and money to wait for Firebase on Windows, and I could have gone to the market earlier if I had chosen something different, then I realized that choosing Firebase was wrong in the first place. reflecting to this thread where you won't get an answer clearly show me that choosing firebase is wrong totally wrong.

Unlimited free projects (which is good for startups because you don't get a good revenue from the beginning).

It's cheaper (the cost model is simpler than Supabase because with Supabase you also need to pay to upgrade server instances; with Firebase, you don't need to worry about that if you don't use the new DataConnect).

It has all the services you commonly need when building an app, like push notifications, so you don't need another service just for that.

Of course, it all depends, but in my experience with both platforms, if you run the same project with a million users, you'll pay less with Firebase.

Do you disagree with any of this?

[richard457]

You forgot one major factor, the fact that it is not open-source and google can one day shut it down, also price wise I do not know if you attempted to do 1000 calls to firestore and see how price start to jump now imagine having millions of calls, on other things I will use firebase for non-major things such as notifications, crashlytics i.e the things I can switch easily but when it come to data a rather use supabase because I know if I want I would host entire data myself and have no vendor lock-in.

[JamesFieldist]

I could care less about Firestore. The only part of Firebase that is non-optional is Firebase messaging.

[richard457]

If you can pay the service for $20 I can build that for you :) hahaha