AppGlance vs Firebase Analytics
Firebase Analytics is free, enormous, and backed by Google. That is a genuinely strong offer, and for a lot of apps it is the right one. Here is where the two actually differ, including the cases where you should close this tab and keep Firebase.
Firebase is a whole platform: crash reporting, push, A/B testing, remote config, and analytics you can pour into SQL. It is free at almost any volume, and nothing here matches its depth.
AppGlance is the opposite trade. Two lines of code, a dashboard with the six numbers you actually check, a live count of who is in your app this second, and a push on your phone when someone buys. If your real question is "did anyone open my app today, and did anyone pay", Firebase is a lot of console to wade through.
Who wrote this: we make AppGlance, so read accordingly. We have tried to be accurate about what Firebase does better, because a comparison that only flatters its author is no use to anyone. Product details change, so verify anything decision-critical against Firebase's own docs. Checked August 2026.
Which one to pick
Keep Firebase if…
- You already use Crashlytics, Remote Config, Cloud Messaging or Firebase Auth. Analytics is right there, integrated, and free.
- You also ship on web, Flutter or Unity and want one number across all of them.
- You want to slice data with SQL. The BigQuery export is the real thing and nothing here matches it.
- You run Google Ads and need analytics-driven audiences and conversion measurement.
- Your event volume is enormous and your budget is zero.
Try AppGlance if…
- You want to open a page and see who is in the app right now, not a report about yesterday.
- You are an indie or a small team and Firebase's console is more machinery than you need.
- You want App Store privacy answers that are short, and generated for you.
- You would rather not hand your users' behaviour to Google.
- You want a push on your phone the moment someone buys.
Note for the first list: shipping on Android is no longer a reason to rule us out. There is a Kotlin SDK with the same two-line setup, and both platforms report into one dashboard.
What the difference actually feels like
Feature tables flatten everything into a row. These three differences are the ones you notice on day one.
Side by side
| AppGlance | Firebase Analytics | |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | One package, two lines, no config file. | Add the SDK, drop in a config file, then configure at launch. More steps, well documented. |
| Dependencies | None on Apple platforms. One on Android (an AndroidX lifecycle library most apps already have). | Pulls in Firebase's core libraries, so a bigger binary and a slower build. |
| SDK size | About 300 KB compiled on iOS (re-measured 2026-08-31 at 1.2.4 on the current stable compiler); a 114 KB AAR on Android. | About 4.3 MB compiled on iOS with the default product (1.9 MB with FirebaseAnalyticsCore); about 1.4 MB of Play services measurement libraries on Android, on a runtime classpath of 57 artifacts. Measured 2026-08-16 with firebase-ios-sdk 12.17.0 and firebase-analytics 23.2.0. |
| Time to first number | Seconds. Run it from Xcode or Android Studio with debug on and watch yourself appear. | DebugView is immediate once enabled. The standard reports take longer to fill in. |
| "Right now" | A live count per app, refreshed every few seconds, built on a quiet presence ping whose cadence follows your plan (every four minutes on Free, every minute on the larger ones). | A realtime view covering roughly the last half hour. The rest is processed in batches, often about a day behind. |
| New event names | They appear in the dashboard by themselves. No schema, no registration. | Custom parameters generally need registering before reports use them, and there is a cap on distinct event names. |
| Deep analysis | Funnels, retention, sessions, per-user timelines and CSV export. No query language. | BigQuery export and SQL. Far more powerful than anything here, if you will write the SQL. |
| Platforms | Apple first (iOS, watchOS, macOS, tvOS, visionOS), a Kotlin SDK for Android, and an HTTP API for anything else. | Everywhere. iOS, Android, web, Flutter, Unity, C++. |
| Beyond analytics | Alerts and webhooks. That is the lot. | A whole platform. Crash reporting, remote config, A/B testing, push, auth, databases. |
| Identifiers | A random per-install id kept in the Keychain. No IDFA, ever. | An app-instance identifier, plus the ad identifier if you enable ad features. |
| App Store privacy label | Two data types, not linked, tracking No, and generated for you. | Longer, and it grows if you turn on ad features. Google publishes guidance you map yourself. |
| ATT prompt | Not required. | Not required for analytics alone, but ad features and audience sharing change that answer. |
| Where data lives | Postgres in the EU (Ireland). Delete an app and every event is gone immediately. | Google's infrastructure. Deletion and retention controls exist and are configurable. |
| Price | Free to 100k events a month, then $4.99/mo for 1M, $14.99/mo for 2.5M, $39/mo for 7M and $99/mo for 18M. Presence pings never count. Prices in USD, excluding VAT or sales tax. | Free for standard reporting at effectively any volume. BigQuery costs extra past its free tier. |
| Source | The SDKs are MIT-licensed and readable. | The Firebase Apple SDK is open source. The backend is not. |
Where your data ends up
This is the part that does not fit in a table, and it is the reason most people who switch give.
AppGlance one destination
Firebase inside an ad business
On the word "free"
Firebase Analytics really is free, and we are not going to pretend that a paid tool beats free on price. What free buys Google is the data: usage from millions of apps, and a hook into the ad ecosystem. If that trade is fine for you, and for plenty of apps it is, Firebase is very hard to beat on cost.
The honest cost comparison is not money, it is attention. The Firebase console is built for teams who will spend time in it. If your actual question is "did anyone open my app today, and did anyone buy", that is a lot of console to wade through, and BigQuery is a strange place to answer it.
On privacy
Both tools can be set up to avoid the ATT prompt. Firebase Analytics without ad features is not "tracking" in Apple's sense either. The difference is the default and the blast radius. AppGlance cannot collect an ad identifier, because there is no code in it that does, and there is no ad network on the other end that might want your audience later. With Firebase, the analytics data sits inside a platform whose business is advertising.
If you want the argument in full: what privacy-first analytics actually means. If you just want your questionnaire answered: the free privacy-label tool.
You can run both
This is not really either/or, and plenty of apps run both for a while: Firebase for crash reporting and the deep historical slice, AppGlance for the daily glance and the alerts. Two SDKs means more code, a longer privacy label, and more to think about, but it is a reasonable way to try one without ripping out the other. Neither tool objects.
Questions people ask
Is Firebase Analytics free?
Yes, at almost any volume, and nothing on this page matches its depth for the price. The cost is not money. It is roughly 4.3 MB of iOS SDK with the default product against our 300 KB, a Google console to wade through, and a set of switches that change your privacy label if you turn them on.
Do I need an ATT prompt if I use Firebase Analytics?
Not necessarily. Both tools can be set up to avoid the ATT prompt. The difference is that with Firebase it is a configuration you have to get right and keep right: turning on ad features or audience sharing changes both your privacy label and your ATT answer. With AppGlance there is no such switch, because there is no advertising identifier anywhere in the SDK.
How much smaller is the AppGlance SDK than Firebase?
About fourteen times, on iOS. AppGlance measures ~300 KB compiled with no third-party dependencies, re-measured on 2026-08-31 at 1.2.4. Firebase Analytics measures about 4.3 MB compiled with the default product, or 1.9 MB with FirebaseAnalyticsCore, and on Android brings roughly 1.4 MB of Play services measurement libraries across a runtime classpath of 57 artifacts.
See it before you decide
The live demo is the real dashboard on sample data from four apps. No account needed.
Also worth reading: all the comparisons, how this compares with TelemetryDeck, how this compares with Aptabase, what privacy-first analytics actually means, and the five-minute quickstart.