Matrix

A network patch panel with numbered ports, one blue cable plugged into port 074 among grey ones

What to Use Instead of Firebase for Chat

Every list of Firebase alternatives is a list of databases. If the thing you built on Firebase is chat, that’s the wrong list. Here are the options for chat specifically, with what each one makes you rebuild and what its bill looks like.

Four walled-off app containers, each holding its own green presence dot, with the links between them severed

Presence Was Supposed to Be Infrastructure

XMPP didn’t lose. The web turned presence into a product and rented it back to us one app at a time. Matrix isn’t the successor — it’s a different bet, and the thing it turned off is the P.