Hi all
I have built and app in firebase, that is currently live, has customers data and has paying users. I did not have much technical knowledge before this but with firebase i have been able to build a working business app by vibe coding and trial and error.
With the news that firebase is closing down i am not sure of where to go or how to do it. My app uses authentification, firestore database and app hosting.
I need to the ability to be able to fix bugs that occur, or modify functionalities in the future and i would only be able to do this by using the AI prompt. I also have no understanding of github, which i see a lot of people mention.
My question is where would you go in my position? Which would be the less painful and complicated route to continue building additional complementary apps and maintain my current business, with the limited knowledge that i have?
Thanks for any advice
Rob
Hey Robin,
Have you tried migrating the app to Google AI Studio? There are migration guides here: Firebase Studio sunset and project migration..
And if you ask an AI (whether it be Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude or Grok) about how to push all of your code to git, and how to use git, they should be able to provide step by step instructions. It’s not that difficult once you get past the initial learning curve.
Edit: In fact, it looks like these migration guides have been updated to include steps on how to move your code to GitHub.
Thanks for the reply Betelgeuse. Would migrating to AI Studio, mean that i wouldnt be able to continue working in firebase if needed? Once migrated is there no way back?
Also i have read comments that AI studio is a different type of tool, and is more for prototyping ideas, rather than building real functional apps
AI studio got some criticism when it was first launched because it was lighter on features than firebase studio, but the intention was always that AI studio be the platform that succeeded all of the good work that firebase studio started. It’s been a long time since I tried AI studio (I moved to Claude Code instead), but when I did try it, it was decent and had a very similar workflow to firebase studio.
Regarding your question about whether you can continue using firebase even after the migration - I’m not sure this would be recommended, as the migration to AI studio is like setting up a new project on a different platform, so your environment variables may change. Looks like the migration does require a git setup so firebase would also need to be integrated with git, otherwise you’d be working on two different codebases. And even if it were integrated, I suspect your firebase project would not load properly after pulling in the changes made by AI studio.
Though I must state - I did not migrate to AI studio so I am not speaking from any experience. Hopefully there are others here who can share their experience.