Feedback on the sunset of Firebase Studio in favor of Antigravity To the Firebase Product Team

General
1

I’m writing to express my strong reservations regarding the sunsetting of Firebase Studio in favor of the Antigravity (VS Code-based) environment. While the industry is buzzing about “Agentic-first” workflows, this transition feels like a regression for several key reasons:

  • The Bloat Factor: Forcing a heavy, Electron-based desktop app on developers who have optimized their workflows for cloud-native agility is a bottleneck. In an era of 5G and ubiquitous connectivity, we should be moving toward more powerful browser-based IDEs, not back to local installs that eat 4GB of RAM just to idle.

  • Aesthetic & UX Dissonance: On modern OSs like macOS Tahoe, the UX standard is fluid, native, and lightweight. A VS Code fork feels clunky and out of place. Firebase Studio was sleek, accessible from any machine, and prioritized the “cloud-first” philosophy that made Firebase great in the first place.

  • The “Local-First” Fallacy: Local-first shouldn’t mean “Desktop-only.” We need the flexibility to manage data and security rules from any device—including tablets—without the overhead of a full IDE setup.

  • AI Integration belongs in the Cloud: Deep Gemini integration shouldn’t require a local binary. Agentic workflows are actually more powerful when they live in a high-speed cloud environment where the data already resides.

Bottom line: Please reconsider keeping a Cloud-native, browser-based interface (like a modernized Firebase Studio) as a first-class citizen. Don’t force us into a monolithic desktop environment just to get the latest AI features.

Best,

Victor Yermak

2

As an everyday Firebase user and an early tester of IDX Studio, I can say that Firebase has been an essential part of my work, and Firebase Studio made it even more valuable by offering a flexible, work-from-anywhere IDE with powerful prototyping capabilities.

It’s honestly ridiculous to see it being discontinued, because it provided a level of accessibility and efficiency that’s hard to replace. Google AI Studio feels much more like an AI playground than a real development environment, while Antigravity appears to depend on high-end local machines, which completely takes away the flexibility of working from anywhere.

Google needs to provide a real alternative for the users who depend on Firebase Studio. And what about the people who paid for extra workspaces? That also needs a clear answer.