European Alternatives to Firebase
Looking for a European alternative to Firebase? Firebase is a Google product, its Google APIs terms define Google as Google LLC in Mountain View, California, and the Google Cloud and Google APIs terms it runs under send disputes to California law and the courts of Santa Clara County.
Eleven European tools cover the job, from four full backends (Nhost, SashiDo, SurrealDB, PocketBase) to the single pieces Firebase bundles: authentication, realtime messaging, hosting and storage, functions and managed open-source hosting, from companies in Sweden, Bulgaria, the UK, Germany, Switzerland, France, Slovenia and Ireland.
How we rank these tools — 4-step process
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European ownership, verified
The company is headquartered and incorporated in the EU, EEA or Switzerland, and processes customer data in Europe. A US parent company disqualifies a tool from this page regardless of where its servers are.
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Category fit and hands-on review
What the tool actually does, who it suits, and where it falls short — checked against the vendor’s own documentation, changelog and pricing page rather than its marketing copy.
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Compliance and pricing check
GDPR posture, hosting location and the prices quoted on this page are verified against the vendor’s public pricing before publication, and re-checked when we revisit the category.
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Position on this page
Placement on this page can be paid, and that can affect which tools appear here and the order they appear in. It never buys a good review: a tool that fails the checks above is not here at any price, and payment does not change the shortcomings we write about. A vendor can ask us to correct a factual error — not to remove a criticism.
Vendors can pay for visibility on this page. It never changes what an entry says about a product, including the criticism, and we earn nothing when you click through to a vendor. Paid placement can affect which tools appear here and the order they appear in. Editorial policy
11 European Alternatives to Firebase
Nhost
Stockholm backend on Postgres with GraphQL, auth, storage and functions; free tier, Pro from $25 a month
SashiDo
Managed Parse backend from Sofia with push, auth and live queries; $14.95 a month, 10-day trial
SurrealDB
Database with built-in auth, permissions and live queries; one free Cloud instance with 1GB storage
Hanko
Kiel authentication service with passkeys and a free plan for 10,000 monthly active users
PocketBase
MIT-licensed backend in one file with realtime, auth and file storage; no company behind it, pre-1.0
ZITADEL
Swiss identity service with a free plan for 100 daily active users and EU data residency
Scaleway
Paris cloud with serverless functions, managed databases and object storage, priced per use
bunny.net
Ljubljana edge platform with storage, SQLite-compatible database and edge scripting; 14-day trial
Ably
London realtime messaging with a free package of 200 connections and 6M messages a month
Elestio
Managed hosting of open-source backends such as Supabase from $11 a month, on a cloud you choose
Clever Cloud
Nantes PaaS with managed databases and object storage, and free credits to try without a card
Key takeaways
- Firebase is a Google product, its APIs terms name Google LLC in Mountain View, and its terms send disputes to California law and the courts of Santa Clara County for the Google Cloud and Google APIs terms it runs under.
- Nhost (Stockholm) is the closest in shape: Postgres with GraphQL, auth, storage and functions, MIT licensed, a free Starter tier and Pro from $25 a month.
- SashiDo (Sofia) is the closest to the Firebase feel for mobile apps: a managed Parse backend with push notifications and live queries from $14.95 a month, on Bulgarian law, running on AWS technology.
- Hanko (Germany) and ZITADEL (Switzerland) replace only Firebase Authentication, both with a free plan, 10,000 monthly users for Hanko and 100 daily users for ZITADEL.
- PocketBase is free and MIT licensed but has no company behind it, its own docs say it is not recommended for production-critical apps before v1.0, and it scales on a single server.
- Scaleway, bunny.net, Clever Cloud and Elestio are not backends in themselves: they are European places to run functions, databases, storage or open-source backends, and Ably covers realtime messaging.
Why people leave Firebase
Firebase is the backend most mobile and web teams reach for first.
One console gives you a database (Firestore or the Realtime Database), user sign-in, file storage, serverless functions, hosting, push messaging, crash reporting and analytics, and the client libraries for iOS, Android and the web make a first working app a matter of hours.
The no-cost Spark plan needs no payment method, and on the pay-as-you-go Blaze plan its pricing page lists authentication at no cost up to 50K monthly active users and Firestore with 1 GiB, 50K reads and 20K writes a day.
It is a Google product, and the contract follows from that. Firestore, Cloud Functions, Cloud Storage, Authentication and App Hosting fall under the Google Cloud Platform Terms of Service, while Hosting, the Realtime Database, Cloud Messaging and Remote Config fall under the Google APIs Terms of Service.
The Google APIs terms define Google as Google LLC in Mountain View, California, and both sets of terms send disputes with non-government customers to California law and the courts of Santa Clara County. Google may process and store customer data anywhere it or its agents maintain facilities unless you select and are offered a data location.
This page is about replacing that bundle. Four of the eleven tools below are full backends (Nhost, SashiDo, SurrealDB and PocketBase). The other seven replace one piece or host the whole thing yourself: Hanko and ZITADEL for sign-in, Ably for realtime messaging, bunny.net and Scaleway for storage, hosting and functions, and Elestio and Clever Cloud for running open-source backends on a European platform. No single one of them is a drop-in for all of Firebase.
- Your contract is with Google LLC, under California law Firebase terms point you to Google Cloud or Google APIs terms. The APIs terms define Google as Google LLC, and both send disputes with non-government customers to California law and the courts of Santa Clara County. The data processing terms add Google Ireland Limited and Google Asia Pacific as possible parties "as applicable", and Google LLC is certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. We could not check whether an EEA customer is offered a different Google entity at sign-up.
- Where your data is stored is not the default Firebase says Google may process and store customer data in any country where Google or its agents have facilities, unless a Data Location Selection is offered for the service and you make it. If you must show an auditor that user data stays in the EU, choose a tool whose contract and hosting say so in plain terms. The Firebase subprocessor page itself carries a last-modified date of 23 September 2021.
- The bundle makes leaving harder than starting Firestore and the Realtime Database are Google-specific databases with their own query model and security rules, and your app talks to them through Firebase SDKs. Moving to Postgres-based tools such as Nhost means rewriting queries and permissions. Moving to PocketBase, SurrealDB or SashiDo means a different data model again. Budget for a rewrite of the data layer, not a configuration change.
- The free tier is also a pricing cliff Spark has no payment method but caps usage, and much beyond that sits on Blaze, billed by Google Cloud rates per read, write, SMS or gigabyte. Several European tools here publish fixed monthly steps instead: Nhost from $25, SashiDo from $14.95, Hanko at $29 plus a per-user fee, ZITADEL at $100. A fixed step is easier to forecast than a per-operation bill.
What you have to replace, not just match
Write down which Firebase products your app really uses. A team using only Authentication and Cloud Messaging has a different job from one built on Firestore, Functions and Hosting. Auth can move alone (Hanko or ZITADEL), a realtime layer can move alone (Ably), and a full backend move (Nhost, SashiDo, SurrealDB, PocketBase) only makes sense if you are ready to port the data layer.
Plan the move user by user. Export users and password hashes from Firebase Authentication with the CLI, check that the new provider can import your hash format, and run both side by side with a migration on first sign-in. Keep Firebase Cloud Messaging and Apple push keys in mind: Android push delivery still goes through Google, so a European push layer changes who holds your subscriber data, not the last hop to the device.
The alternatives compared
| Position | Tool | Headquarters | Pricing | Jurisdiction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Nhost | Stockholm, Sweden | Free tier / Pro from about $25/month per project | EU (Sweden) |
| #4 | Hanko | Kiel, Germany | Free tier / from €99 per month | EU (Germany) |
| #5 | PocketBase | Sofia, Bulgaria | Free and open source | Wherever you run it |
| #6 | ZITADEL | St. Gallen, Switzerland | Free tier / from €100 per month | Switzerland (adequacy decision, outside the EEA) |
| #7 | Scaleway | Paris, France | From about €0.0025/hour (DEV1-S) | EU (France) |
| #8 | bunny.net | Ljubljana, Slovenia | Pay-as-you-go from about €0.01/GB | EU (Slovenia) |
| #10 | Elestio | Bucharest, Romania | From about $10/month per service plus infrastructure cost | EU (Romania) |
| #11 | Clever Cloud | Nantes, France | From about €1.49/month | EU (France) |
How each alternative compares to Firebase
- Which law reaches it. EU (Sweden). Firebase is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. EU regions available.
- Source code. Open source, where Firebase is not: you can read what it does rather than take the description on trust.
Best for: Teams that want a managed backend with auth, storage and functions and are happy with SQL and GraphQL
Nhost is run by Nhost AB, registered in the Stockholm commercial register under number 559224-1359. Its privacy policy names Nhost AB as controller and says no transfers outside the EEA are planned, except for storage. The terms we could read do not name a governing law, so that is not claimed here.
Its pricing page lists a Starter plan at $0 (one project, paused after a week of inactivity, 1 GB database and storage, 5 GB egress, functions, OAuth providers and unlimited users), Pro from $25 a month with $15 of compute credits, and Team from $599. The stack is open source under the MIT licence on GitHub.
It replaces Firebase Authentication, Cloud Storage and Cloud Functions with its own services over a Postgres database. The data model is relational with a GraphQL API, so it is a different way of working from Firestore, not a port.
What Nhost does better than Firebase
- Swedish company with a registered number, where Firebase is Google LLC
- Relational Postgres data you can export as a standard dump
- Open-source stack under MIT, so there is a self-hosting exit
- A fixed monthly plan, not per-read billing
Where Nhost is a step down from Firebase
- No analytics, crash reporting or remote config of its own
- Free projects pause after a week of inactivity
- GraphQL and SQL is a bigger step than the Firebase SDKs for some teams
- A smaller community and fewer client libraries than Firebase
Standout against Firebase. The whole backend is MIT licensed Postgres with an auth layer, so a move out of Nhost is a database export.
SashiDo
the closest to the Firebase feel for mobile apps, as a managed Parse backend with push
Best for: Mobile and web teams that want hosted database, sign-in, push and live queries without running a server
SashiDo is a product of CloudStrap AD, company number 204018250, at 3 Angel Kanchev street in Sofia. Its terms are governed by the laws of Bulgaria, with the Bulgarian courts having exclusive jurisdiction. The site says it is based on CloudStrap and AWS technologies and lists regions including Paris, so the hosting layer is Amazon's.
It runs the open-source Parse platform, with SDKs for iOS, Android, Flutter, Unity and the web, push notifications, background jobs and hosted live queries for realtime data. Its Europe region page lists $14.95 a month per app with 5M monthly requests, $0.30 per 100k extra, and a 10-day free trial without a card.
The Parse data model is object-based and different from Firestore, but the client-side feel (save an object, send a push, subscribe to changes) is close to Firebase. It says it is not affiliated with Parse LLC or Facebook.
What SashiDo does better than Firebase
- Bulgarian company under Bulgarian law, with a stated exclusive venue
- Push notifications and live queries are in the same product
- Published entry price and a trial with no card
- Built on open-source Parse, so you can move to your own Parse server
Where SashiDo is a step down from Firebase
- Runs on AWS, so a US hyperscaler sits under the contract
- Pricing is in dollars, with a pay-as-you-go engine and request model that is harder to forecast
- Parse is a smaller ecosystem than Firebase
- The free route is a 10-day trial, not a permanent plan
Standout against Firebase. It is the one European option here that bundles database, sign-in, push and live queries for mobile apps behind a single Parse SDK.
SurrealDB
a database with sign-in, permissions and live queries built in, from England
Best for: Developers who want the database to enforce auth and send live updates and are willing to learn a new query language
SurrealDB is provided by SurrealDB Ltd, registered in England and Wales under company number 13615201, with a trading address in London. Its master agreement sets Delaware law for customers in North America and English law, with London as venue, for the rest of the world.
Its site lists authentication, permissions, live queries and functions as native to the engine, which covers much of the job Firebase does with Authentication, Security Rules and the Realtime Database in one component. SurrealDB Cloud's Start plan gives the first instance at $0 an hour with 1GB of storage free, and the Scale plan is billed at $0.192 a node-hour with a minimum of three nodes.
It is a database first, so file storage, push and hosting are not part of it. Its GitHub repository did not report a standard licence, so licence terms are not described here.
What SurrealDB does better than Firebase
- English company with English law for customers outside North America
- Auth, permissions and live queries sit inside the database
- A free Cloud instance with 1GB, not a time-limited trial
- Multi-model data (documents, graph, relational) in one place
Where SurrealDB is a step down from Firebase
- A new query language (SurrealQL) to learn
- No built-in push, hosting or analytics
- Delaware law applies if you are in North America
- Licence could not be confirmed from its repository
Standout against Firebase. Row-level permissions and live queries are part of the database engine itself, not a layer on top.
- Which law reaches it. EU (Germany). Firebase is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. EU, or self-hosted.
- Source code. Open source, where Firebase is not: you can read what it does rather than take the description on trust.
- Independently checked. GDPR.
Best for: Teams that want to move only sign-in off Firebase and add passkeys on the way
Hanko GmbH is at Ringstrasse 19 in Kiel, registered at the Amtsgericht Kiel under HRB 19885 KI. Its Hanko Cloud terms are governed by the laws of Germany and exclude consumers; they are for business customers only.
Its pricing page lists a free Starter plan with 10,000 monthly active users and two projects, passkeys, passwords, passwordless and social sign-in, multi-factor authentication and a custom domain. Pro is $29 a month plus $0.01 per monthly active user above 10,000, and a startup program offers a million monthly active users free. The homepage names Firebase Auth among the tools it replaces, and says it is made and hosted in Europe.
It is authentication only. You keep your database and everything else on whatever you use now.
What Hanko does better than Firebase
- German GmbH under German law, business customers only
- Free plan with 10,000 monthly active users
- Passkeys as a first-class way to sign in
- Self-hosting or a private cloud as options
Where Hanko is a step down from Firebase
- Authentication only, nothing else from the Firebase bundle
- Calls itself open source, but its repository did not report a standard licence, so the licence is not stated here
- Pro adds $0.01 per extra monthly user
- Business customers only: consumers cannot open a Hanko Cloud account
Standout against Firebase. It is built around passkeys, and its free plan covers 10,000 monthly active users.
- Which law reaches it. Wherever you run it. Firebase is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. Wherever you run the binary.
- Source code. Open source, where Firebase is not: you can read what it does rather than take the description on trust.
Best for: Side projects and small internal apps that can live on one server
PocketBase is an open-source backend in one executable: an embedded database with realtime subscriptions, a REST API, email and OAuth2 sign-in, file storage on disk or S3, and an admin dashboard. It is MIT licensed on GitHub.
There is no company or contracting entity on its site, and no price, since you run it yourself, for example on Hetzner, Vultr, UpCloud or Linode, which its FAQ names as options. Its FAQ says it scales only on a single server. The location we show is from the site's existing data, not from its own pages.
Its documentation says that full backward compatibility is not guaranteed before v1.0.0 and that it is not recommended for production-critical applications yet. The version on its homepage is v0.40.4.
What PocketBase does better than Firebase
- Free, MIT licensed, and you hold the data on a server you pick
- Realtime, auth and file storage in one small download
- No vendor contract at all, so no foreign jurisdiction
- Easy to run on any European host
Where PocketBase is a step down from Firebase
- No company, so nobody to sign a data processing agreement with
- Pre-1.0, with breaking changes possible and a warning against critical use
- Single server only, scaling vertically
- You are responsible for backups, updates and uptime
Standout against Firebase. The entire backend is one file you run yourself, which is both its appeal and its limit.
- Which law reaches it. Switzerland (adequacy decision, outside the EEA). Firebase is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. Switzerland, or self-hosted.
- Source code. Open source, where Firebase is not: you can read what it does rather than take the description on trust.
- Independently checked. GDPR-adequate.
Best for: Teams that need sign-in with organisations, roles and a choice of data region
The ZITADEL Cloud terms name CAOS Ltd. (also written CAOS AG) with its head office at Lerchenfeldstrasse 3 in St. Gallen, Switzerland. The agreement is subject to Swiss law, with St. Gallen as exclusive venue. The version we read is dated 15 November 2023. Switzerland is outside the EU, though it is in Europe.
Its pricing page lists a Free plan at $0 with unlimited users and organisations and 100 daily active users, with data residency in the EU, the US, Switzerland or Australia. Pro is US$100 a month with 25,000 daily active users and a custom domain. The source is on GitHub under AGPL-3.0.
It replaces Firebase Authentication only, and it counts daily rather than monthly active users, so compare the two plans on your own traffic pattern.
What ZITADEL does better than Firebase
- Swiss company and Swiss law, outside US jurisdiction
- You choose the data region, including the EU
- Open source under AGPL-3.0, with self-hosting
- Organisations and roles built in, useful for B2B apps
Where ZITADEL is a step down from Firebase
- Switzerland is outside the EU and the EEA
- Only 100 daily users on the free plan, against 50K monthly on Firebase Auth
- Authentication only, no database or push
- Pro starts at $100 a month, a large step
Standout against Firebase. It lets you pick the data region (EU, US, Switzerland or Australia) in the Free plan too.
- Which law reaches it. EU (France). Firebase is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw — EU only.
- Source code. Closed source, as Firebase is.
Best for: Teams happy to wire up cloud components, who want Cloud Functions-style serverless in France
Scaleway SAS is registered in Paris (SIREN 433115904). Its general terms of service on scaleway.com/en/contracts carry a version of 9 June 2026. We did not read the governing law from the document.
Its serverless pricing page lists functions at EUR 0.000005 per GB-second after 400,000 GB-seconds a month at no cost. Alongside functions there are managed databases and object storage, which cover what Firebase does with Cloud Functions, Firestore-style data and Cloud Storage, though each is a separate service you connect.
There are no ready-made client SDKs for auth, push or live data. This is infrastructure, so the backend logic is yours to write.
What Scaleway does better than Firebase
- French company, with French data centres
- Published usage prices, including a monthly free tier for functions
- Wide choice of managed components in one account
- Startup credits of up to EUR 36,000 listed on its site
Where Scaleway is a step down from Firebase
- Not a backend-as-a-service: no ready-made auth, push or realtime
- You assemble and operate the pieces yourself
- Governing law could not be confirmed from the contract page
- Smaller documentation and community than Google Cloud
Standout against Firebase. It is the cloud-primitives route, with functions, databases and storage priced per use in French data centres.
- Which law reaches it. EU (Slovenia). Firebase is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. 110+ PoPs globally, strong European presence.
- Source code. Closed source, as Firebase is.
Best for: Sites and apps that need fast static hosting, storage, a small database and edge logic
bunny.net is operated by BunnyWay d.o.o., Dunajska cesta 165, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia, as stated in its terms and privacy policy. The governing law was not found in the text we could retrieve, so it is not claimed here.
Its product menu lists storage, Edge Scripting, Bunny Database, Magic Containers and a CDN. The database page says it is libSQL and SQLite-compatible, offers 41 regions and costs only for storage while idle. A 14-day free trial needs no credit card.
Bunny's pricing pages are rendered in the browser, so no price is quoted here. It replaces Firebase Hosting, Cloud Storage and part of Cloud Functions, but has no sign-in or push.
What bunny.net does better than Firebase
- Slovenian company named in its terms and privacy policy
- Static hosting, storage and edge scripts in one account
- Database costs only storage when idle
- 14-day trial without a credit card
Where bunny.net is a step down from Firebase
- No authentication, push or realtime of its own
- Prices could not be verified from the pages
- A libSQL database is a different model from Firestore
- Governing law not confirmed
Standout against Firebase. It combines a CDN-grade storage network with an SQLite-compatible database and edge scripts under one login.
Ably
realtime messaging as a service, if the Realtime Database is what you rely on
Best for: Chat, presence, live dashboards and notifications between clients
Ably's terms are with Ably Realtime Ltd., organised under the laws of England. They say the Ably solution is controlled from its offices in London, and that the subject matter and disputes are governed by the laws of England and Wales.
Its pricing page lists a Free package with 200 concurrent connections, 500 messages a second and 6M messages a month. Standard is $29 a month plus usage, Pro is $399 a month, and usage is billed at $2.50 per million messages, with discounts at volume.
It is a messaging layer, not a database. If you used the Realtime Database or Firestore listeners to push updates to clients, Ably can carry the updates while the data sits in another tool.
What Ably does better than Firebase
- English company under English law
- Free package with real limits stated in numbers
- Presence, channels and message history built for realtime
- Can sit in front of any database
Where Ably is a step down from Firebase
- Not a database, auth or storage service
- Usage-based billing can grow with message volume
- The UK is outside the EU and the EEA
- Smaller overlap with Firebase than the full backends
Standout against Firebase. It does one thing, realtime delivery, and prices it in messages, channels and connections.
- Which law reaches it. EU (Romania). Firebase is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. Your own cloud account or chosen EU region.
- Source code. Closed source, as Firebase is.
- Independently checked. Deployed services are open source.
Best for: Teams that want to run an open-source backend without administering servers
Elestio's terms name ELESTIO LIMITED, a company based in Ireland with its registered office at 29 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, company registration number 755058. The existing Elestio page on this site lists a Romanian SRL, which the current terms do not mention.
Its pricing page lists plans from $11 a month for a managed service on a dedicated VM, with backups, SSL and monitoring, and a 3-day free trial. Its catalogue includes Supabase, Keycloak, MinIO and PostgreSQL among over 400 services.
The cloud choices include Hetzner, Netcup and Scaleway, but also DigitalOcean, AWS Lightsail, Vultr, Linode and Azure. So a European contract does not by itself mean European hosting: it depends on the provider you pick.
What Elestio does better than Firebase
- Irish company under EU law
- Hosts several open-source backends without the admin work
- Fixed monthly prices from $11
- You choose the cloud and region
Where Elestio is a step down from Firebase
- Not a backend itself, it hosts other software
- Some provider choices are US hyperscalers
- Only a 3-day trial
- You still design and run your own backend
Standout against Firebase. You pick the host from a list of nine providers, which makes it the one tool here where hosting location is your decision.
- Which law reaches it. EU (France). Firebase is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. EU data centres.
- Source code. Closed source, as Firebase is.
Best for: Teams that want to deploy a custom backend and its databases on a French platform
Clever Cloud SAS is registered in Nantes (SIREN 524172699). Its site says it operates its own datacenters in France to keep data away from extraterritorial laws such as the Cloud Act, and lists ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and Health Data Hosting (HDS) certification, which are its own statements.
It is a platform for running applications written in Node.js, Python, Ruby, Docker and other runtimes, with managed MongoDB, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis and Cellar object storage. New accounts get free credits to try it without a payment card. We did not quote a price, as its pricing page is rendered in the browser.
It replaces the hosting and database parts of Firebase when you write the backend yourself. It has no ready-made sign-in, push or realtime service.
What Clever Cloud does better than Firebase
- French company with a registered number
- Free credits on sign-up, no card needed
- Managed databases and object storage next to app hosting
- Says it runs its own datacenters in France, with ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and Health Data Hosting certification
Where Clever Cloud is a step down from Firebase
- A platform for your own code, not a ready-made backend
- No auth, push or realtime built in
- Prices could not be verified from its pages
- A smaller community than the big clouds
Standout against Firebase. It runs your own backend code and its databases on a French platform, with free credits to start.
What actually breaks when you switch
The hard part of leaving Firebase is the data model, not the account. Firestore documents, Realtime Database trees and Security Rules do not map one to one onto Postgres, Parse classes or SurrealDB records, so plan to redesign the schema, port the rules to permissions, and rewrite the queries in your app. Export users and password hashes from Firebase Authentication early, and check that the new provider accepts the hash format.
Several of these tools do one job. Hanko and ZITADEL replace only sign-in, Ably only messaging, and Scaleway, bunny.net, Clever Cloud and Elestio are places to run things rather than backends. None of the eleven replaces Analytics, Crashlytics, Remote Config and A/B Testing, which are separate decisions.
A European contract is not the same as European hosting. SashiDo runs on AWS, Elestio lets you pick US hyperscalers, ZITADEL is Swiss, and SurrealDB and Ably are UK companies. Check the contracting entity, the hosting region and the sub-processor list for the one you choose, and keep Firebase Cloud Messaging in mind, since Android push still travels through Google.
Is there a single European tool that does everything Firebase does?
No. Nhost, SashiDo, SurrealDB and PocketBase each cover a database, sign-in and files, and Nhost and SashiDo add functions or push, but none bundles analytics, crash reporting, remote config and A/B testing the way Firebase does. Firebase lists those as separate no-cost products, and a European move usually means picking separate tools for them.
Start from the pieces your app depends on. If the heart of it is a database, sign-in and push, SashiDo or Nhost will get you close. If it leans on Crashlytics and Analytics, treat those as a separate decision.
Which of these are real backends, and which are building blocks?
Full backends: Nhost, SashiDo, SurrealDB and PocketBase. Building blocks: Hanko and ZITADEL for authentication, Ably for realtime messaging, bunny.net for storage, edge scripting and a database, and Scaleway for functions, databases and storage. Platforms that host a backend you choose: Elestio, with Supabase on its list of managed apps, and Clever Cloud with databases and object storage.
The building blocks are the right answer when only one part of Firebase bothers you, for example sign-in, and the rest of your stack can stay.
Does Firebase offer EU data storage?
Its terms say that unless a Data Location Selection is offered by Google and made by the customer, Google may process and store customer data anywhere Google or its agents maintain facilities. Whether the selection is offered depends on the service, and the pages we could read do not give a service-by-service list, so check your project locations in the console before you rely on it.
Even with an EU location, the contract is with Google under California law and the Data Privacy Framework covers transfers. That is a legal-structure question, not a data-centre question.
Can I keep using Firebase Cloud Messaging for push?
Yes, and you probably have to. Android delivery goes through Firebase Cloud Messaging whichever provider you use to send, and iOS goes through Apple. SashiDo includes push and sends through those channels. What a European provider changes is where the subscriber list and message history live and under which law, not the last hop to the phone.
Which one to pick
If you want the nearest replacement for Firebase as a whole, start with Nhost for a Postgres and GraphQL backend, or SashiDo if your app is mobile and needs push and live queries. SurrealDB is the choice if you would rather have auth and live queries inside the database itself.
If only sign-in worries you, move just that: Hanko has a free plan for 10,000 monthly users and passkeys, ZITADEL gives you a choice of data region under Swiss law. Ably covers realtime messaging, and Scaleway, bunny.net and Clever Cloud are places to run functions, storage and databases if you will write the backend yourself. Elestio is the route if you want to host an open-source backend such as Supabase without running it.
Treat PocketBase as a hobby and prototype tool for now. It is free and MIT licensed, but there is no company to sign with, it runs on one server, and its own docs warn against critical production use before v1.0.
Be realistic about the gap. Firebase is one console with client libraries, analytics, crash reporting and remote config that none of these matches as a bundle, and its free tier is generous. Switch if you need a European or EEA contracting party and a court close to home, and keep Firebase if you depend on the whole package.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nhost is the closest all-round answer on this page: Postgres with GraphQL, authentication, storage and functions, MIT licensed, hosted by Nhost AB in Stockholm, with a free Starter tier. SashiDo is the better fit if you want push notifications and Parse-style live queries in a managed backend, and Hanko or ZITADEL if only sign-in is the issue.
No. It is a Google product, and the terms it runs under name Google LLC at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, California (the Google APIs terms define Google that way). For both the Google Cloud and the Google APIs terms, disputes with non-government customers go to California law and the courts of Santa Clara County. The data processing terms also name Google Ireland Limited and Google Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. as possible parties.
There is a no-cost Spark plan with no payment method needed and a pay-as-you-go Blaze plan. Its pricing page lists authentication at no cost up to 50K monthly active users (phone sign-in is billed per SMS), Firestore with 1 GiB stored, 50K reads and 20K writes a day, Hosting with 10 GB of storage, and Cloud Messaging and Crashlytics at no cost. Above the no-cost limits, most services bill at Google Cloud rates.
Nhost lists Starter at $0 (one project, paused after a week of inactivity, 1 GB database and storage), Pro from $25 a month with $15 of compute credits, and Team from $599. SashiDo lists from $14.95 a month per app on its Europe region page, with 5M monthly requests included, $0.30 per 100k extra, and a 10-day free trial without a card. Prices exclude VAT where a page says so.
Hanko has a free Starter plan with 10,000 monthly active users and two projects, and Pro at $29 a month plus $0.01 per monthly active user above 10,000. ZITADEL has a free plan with 100 daily active users and Pro at US$100 a month with 25,000 daily active users. Note the different units: monthly active users for Hanko, daily active users for ZITADEL.
Nhost AB (Sweden), CloudStrap AD behind SashiDo (Bulgaria), Hanko GmbH (Germany), BunnyWay d.o.o. (Slovenia), Scaleway SAS and Clever Cloud SAS (France) and Elestio Limited (Ireland) are in the EU. SurrealDB Ltd and Ably Realtime Ltd are English companies in the UK, and ZITADEL (CAOS Ltd., St. Gallen) is Swiss. PocketBase has no company at all.
Nhost (MIT) and PocketBase (MIT) are MIT licensed, ZITADEL is AGPL-3.0, and SashiDo runs the open-source Parse server. SurrealDB publishes its source code on GitHub, but its repository did not report a standard licence, so we do not label it. Hanko describes itself as open source, but its repository did not report a standard licence. Ably, bunny.net, Scaleway and Clever Cloud are services, and Elestio hosts open-source software for you.
Not directly. Firestore stores documents in collections with its own query rules, and none of the eleven reads that format natively. Export the collections as JSON, then import them into the model of the new tool: tables in Nhost, a Parse class in SashiDo, records in SurrealDB or a collection in PocketBase. Expect to redesign the schema and rewrite the security rules as permissions.
Its own documentation says full backward compatibility is not guaranteed before v1.0.0 and that it is not recommended for production-critical applications yet, unless you are comfortable reading changelogs and applying migration steps. Its FAQ says it scales on a single server, vertically. It suits side projects and small internal apps, and there is no vendor to contract with.
Not always in the company's home country. SashiDo describes itself as based on CloudStrap and AWS technologies and lists a Paris region, so Amazon infrastructure sits underneath the Bulgarian contract. Nhost lists six regions and says it plans no transfers outside the EEA except for storage. Hanko says it is made and hosted in Europe. Check the region you choose and the provider list in each DPA.
Elestio deploys and manages open-source software for you on a cloud you pick, from $11 a month with a 3-day trial. For a backend team that means running something like Supabase, listed among its managed apps, without administering it yourself. Its terms name Elestio Limited in Dublin, and the cloud list includes Hetzner, Netcup and Scaleway but also DigitalOcean, AWS Lightsail and Azure, so the provider you choose decides where the data sits.
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