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:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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