Firebase Real-Time database vs Storage

Question

Im using Real-Time database to storage my users Profiles.

Each of the profiles can contain multiple rooms, where each of them contain their own picture creating a quite complex structure.

Here an example:

To make it easier to store the pictures to the corresponding profile, and room I am changing my pictures Bitmap in android to a String before I parse the object into the Database, and then when I get the object back I transform the String back to the Bitmap.

I was just wondering if this comes with any down cost in the future. Or if this implementation is safe where we put more data in the databases.

That is a weird way of storing the pictures into the database. This will also increase the overhead as first, the image has to be converted into the bitmap. I would suggest to go with the storage option and store the URL of images into your database. — Neeraj Sewani
– Neeraj Sewani, Commented Apr 16, 2019 at 8:50

Doug Stevenson · Accepted Answer · 2019-04-16 16:14:44Z

5

With your current database structure as-is, you will run into problems.

With the Realtime Database and this structure, everytime you request "user/SOME_ID", you will download all of the data below it - including your serialized images. Consult the database structure guide for information on how to flatten your data out so this doesn't occur.

Furthermore, I would recommend making use of Cloud Storage for Firebase to store your images in their native binary format rather than serializing to Base64 taking up ~30% more space. Like the RTDB, storage can be secured with rules if you store the files in structured locations like "user/SOME_ID/roomImages/ROOM_ID/..." or "roomImages/ROOM_ID/..."

edited Apr 16, 2019 at 16:14

Doug Stevenson

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answered Apr 16, 2019 at 8:49

samthecodingman

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Comments

Amin · Accepted Answer · 2019-04-16 08:38:47Z

0

I think that's not safe and bad implementation because u save users data in a third party service even without any encryption rather than storing it in your back-end which you have full control on it. if I was A user for your app I didn't like that but if this app just for testing something there is no problem.

answered Apr 16, 2019 at 8:38

Amin

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2 Comments

Patrick Vibild Over a year ago

Well its for a university project, we are supposed to develop a android application (where we do not have to take any security in consideration so far...) I was more worried about performance than security when asking this. Also does the firebase storage bring encryption to the files compared to firebase real-time databases?

samthecodingman Over a year ago

#AskFirebase published a video on GDPR and Privacy topics including many useful links to their policies. The RTDB vs. Firestore suggests that Firestore will be easier to use when it comes to geo-fencing your stored data. There's also an extensive talk on Serverless GDPR compliance. Lastly, Riya Sinha has an article on using client-side encryption with Firebase.

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