Was thinking for an app that works on both mobile and web, Firebase is ideal for its REST Api and real time sync. Also Angularfire makes it easy to hook all of the components up. However, I have also seen a couple of apps using MEAN stack with MongoDB. Whats the main differences that one should know between these 2 stacks?<p>What I understand is Firebase has less control but needs less codes and has less quirky errors. But that also means the data is not query-able or not as easily manipulated and search engines are not optimised to track Firebase stuff.<p>Would like to hear your experiences on the various backend solutions used (not exhaustive). Feel free to talk about the requirements from your project that needs various stacks.<p>Some other considerations I have:
- scalability
- costs (user number/ usage level vs. costs)- both are free until usage hits a certain level
- code maintainability
- code portability
- device compatibility
The cool thing about MEAN is as a front-end developer you have the ability to trace all the way down the stack without having to learn another programming language (JavaScript) but it works primarily with MongoDB.
Similar to Firebase is Backand.com which also provides you a REST API but to any database, which means you can work with your own MySQL or Postgres database. Unlike Firebase, Backand gives you a bunch of AngularJS UI directives to begin with so that it makes getting started very simple.
Another technology is PhoneGap which can make your Angular web app into mobile apps using standardized web APIs.