Firebase Analytics Alternative

A self-hosted event analytics pipeline you deploy into your own infrastructure. Own your raw events, control your costs, keep your data in the EU.

Firebase Analytics is convenient at small scale. At growth scale, two friction points usually appear: cost predictability becomes harder, and raw event ownership is limited.

Rawbbit is positioned as a portable alternative for teams that want the raw layer to be the source of truth, deployed in their own cloud, with no per-event SaaS fees.

Rawbbit vs Firebase Analytics
Feature Rawbbit Firebase Analytics
Pricing model Free self-serve for technical teams. Setup and maintenance help is available by quote. You pay your own infrastructure costs because the systems run in infrastructure you own; Rawbbit has no recurring SaaS, per-user, or per-event fees. Firebase Analytics is free. It does not become paid after a certain number of events. BigQuery storage, queries, and streaming export may add Google Cloud costs.
Per-event fees No per-event fees from Rawbbit. More events only increase your own infrastructure usage. No per-event collection fee. Firebase allows unlimited total event volume, but has limits on distinct event types.
High-volume export Events are written directly to your own storage as Parquet. There is no Firebase-style 1M/day daily export limit from Rawbbit. Standard BigQuery daily export is limited to 1M events/day. If this limit is consistently exceeded, daily export can be paused. Streaming export has no event limit, but is best-effort and may add BigQuery costs.
Raw event ownership Strong. Raw events land as portable Parquet files in your own object storage. You can move, replay, or query them later. Partial. Raw data can be exported to BigQuery, but Firebase/Google Analytics collects and processes events first. The default raw export path is BigQuery, not your own Parquet storage.
Warehouse integration ClickHouse is the primary query layer over raw Parquet. dbt Core can load and test models, and Metabase can be used for BI. Native BigQuery export. Good for teams already using Google Cloud, but raw export is tied mainly to BigQuery.
Vendor lock-in Lower. The raw layer is portable Parquet, and the pipeline runs in your own infrastructure. Higher. SDK, dashboards, audiences, attribution, Firebase integrations, and raw export path are Google/Firebase-centered.
Setup model Self-hosted. Runs on your infrastructure with Docker, the Collector API, NATS JetStream, a raw writer, S3-compatible object storage such as SeaweedFS, and ClickHouse. Managed SaaS. Add Firebase SDK, enable Analytics, and use Firebase/GA dashboards. BigQuery export is optional.
Suited for Technical game/app teams that want raw data ownership, portable storage, and predictable infrastructure-based costs. Teams that want fast setup, free dashboards, Firebase integrations, Google Ads/audience workflows, and minimal infrastructure work.

When Rawbbit is the better fit

  • You want to own raw event data in Parquet on your own object storage.
  • You need EU data residency for GDPR or contractual reasons.
  • You have predictable infrastructure costs and want to avoid per-event SaaS pricing.
  • You want a portable raw layer with a query engine and modeling workflow you can control.

When Firebase Analytics is the better fit

  • You want a zero-ops managed dashboard with no infrastructure to operate.
  • You are at small scale and the Firebase free tier comfortably covers your usage.
  • You are already deeply integrated with the broader Firebase platform (Auth, Crashlytics, Remote Config) and don't want to introduce a second pipeline.

FAQ

Is Rawbbit a hosted SaaS like Firebase Analytics?

No. Rawbbit is deployed into your own infrastructure. The pipeline runs on your servers, raw events land in your object storage, and you query through your own warehouse.

How do events enter Rawbbit?

A game client or backend sends event batches over HTTP to the Collector API. Rawbbit buffers them with NATS JetStream and writes partitioned Parquet files to object storage you control.

Does Rawbbit work outside Google Cloud?

Yes. The supported pipeline is Docker-based and can use S3-compatible object storage such as SeaweedFS; GCS is also supported. ClickHouse is the primary query layer, with dbt Core available for loading and testing models.

Talk to us about migrating

If you are evaluating analytics alternatives, we can help you move to a portable raw-data-first setup.

See pricing details