Google updates Firebase with performance monitoring and phone authentication, starts open-sourcing SDKs

At Google’s I/O 2017 developer conference today, the company announced new features for Firebase, its service for helping developers build apps for Android, iOS, and the web. At the same time, Google also started open-sourcing Firebase’s software development kits (SDKs). “We believe in open source software, not only because transparency is an important goal, but also because we know that the greatest innovation happens when we all collaborate,” the team declared.

Google acquired Firebase in October 2014. Since then, the backend-as-a-service has grown from 110,000 developers to over 1 million. Last year at I/O, the company expanded Firebase into a full mobile development platform. But even since then, it has continued to add more functionality.