What can replace Firebase for a China deployment?
Before comparing replacements it is worth being precise about what has to change, because it narrows the list. Measured fact: of twelve Google-owned properties requested from a probe inside mainland China three times each on 2026-08-28, eleven produced no response at all, includingcloud.google.com at zero of three. That is the minority failure mode in our wider census — only about one site in nine produced nothing at all — but it is the one that cannot be improved by delivery work, because a destination that does not answer is not made to answer by changing where the request comes from. So the requirement for a replacement is not «faster» but «reachable from inside the mainland, on every runtime call the app makes» — authentication, database reads, config, messaging. Once that is the criterion, the choice is mostly about where the service runs rather than what it is called, and serving from the mainland brings the ICP filing with it. What to measure before choosing a replacement
| Fact | Primary source |
|---|---|
Across our census we requested twelve Google-owned properties from a probe inside mainland China (Alibaba Cloud cn-zhangjiakou), three times each on 2026-08-28. Eleven of the twelve produced no response at all — not a slow response, no first byte in any attempt. The twelfth, the Google Fonts stylesheet endpoint, answered every time from that datacenter probe and then failed 54 requests out of 54 when the same measurement ran on a Beijing China Mobile residential line on 2026-08-30. | 21YunBox — 280-site China delivery census, measured from inside mainland China |
Sources verified by the 21YunBox China engineering team on 2026-08-30.
2023 Update: Exciting News!
*TLDR; This Firebase China article provides you with a the best solutions to get your Firebase applications working fast, stable, and compliant in China.*
What is Firebase and how it works?
Firebase is a real-time back-end database startup company that can help developers quickly write web and mobile applications. In October 2014, Google acquired Firebase and later integrated Firebase into Google’s cloud services.
Does Firebase work in China?
No. Firebase does not have servers in mainland China, making their services unstable or inaccessable in China.
If you want to learn a solution to accelerate Firebase in China, please refer to this Firebase China article, where we dive deeper into how Firebase works in China and how to accelerate Firebase in China.
If you prefer to keep your application hosted on servers in mainland China, we recommend using Parse.
The Best Alternative for Firebase in China is Parse
What is Parse?
Parse is a cloud-based back-end management platform.
Parse provides developers a one-stop back-end and package services, including server configuration, database management, API, video and audio file storage, real-time message push, customer data analysis, and statistics, etc. Parse enables developers to focus on the front-end/client/mobile-side development by helping to manage the back-end for you.
Facebook acquired Parse in 2013, and later decided to close Parse, and finally, Parse decided to open source their code, and now Parse Server and Parse Dashboard, and recently GraphQL Other functions.
21YunBox provides a fully managed Firebase-alternative solution for China
Ready to make your app work in China?
Get Started Now21YunBox provides an operational and maintenance-free, single-click Parse Dashboard deployment solution.
How to Create and Deploy a Parse Server?
- Signup on 21YunBox
- Create a MongoDB database
- Fork Parse Server starter
- Click Cloud Service on 21YunBox and allow 21YunBox to access your repo
- Use the following values during the creation
| Runtime | Node |
|---|---|
| Build command | yarn install |
| Start command | yarn start |
Click Advanced Configuration to configure environment variables:
| KEY | VALUE |
|---|---|
| APP_ID | Randomly generate 32-bit characters |
| MASTER_KEY | Randomly generate 32-bit characters |
| MONGODB_URI | Click Database URL in the cloud database console to obtain |
| SERVER_URL | https://<APP_ID>.21cloudbox.com/parse |
| PORT | 10000, default port used by 21CloudBox |
For more other Parse Server environment variable configurations, please refer to the official documentation.
Randomly generate 32-bit characters method: Paste the following command on the command line:
echo $(base64 /dev/urandom | head -c32)After Parse is successfully deployed, you can go to <APP_ID>.21cloudbox.com/test for testing. When the test is successful, you will see the following:
Step-by-Step Setup and Deploy Video:
Ready to make your Firebase app work in China?
Get started now, and our staff will assist your journey in China.
Get Started NowHow to use Parse Server to Create and Read Data?
You can use the curl command or the visual interface Postman to help you create and read data.
Create Data
Created in curl way
curl -X POST \
-H "X-Parse-Application-Id: <APPLICATION_ID>" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d'{"score":1337,"playerName":"Sean Plott","cheatMode":false}' \
https://<APP_ID>.21cloudbox.com/parse/classes/GameScoreAfter the successful creation, you should receive a similar json
{
"objectId": "9ed7LlOzn2",
"createdAt": "2021-03-25T07:03:28.668Z"
}Read Data
Via objectId, read the data created above
curl -X GET \
-H "X-Parse-Application-Id: APPLICATION_ID" \
https://<APP_ID>.21cloudbox.com/parse/classes/GameScore/9ed7LlOzn2// Response
{
"objectId": "9ed7LlOzn2",
"score": 1337,
"playerName": "Sean Plott",
"cheatMode": false,
"createdAt": "2021-03-25T07:03:28.668Z",
"updatedAt": "2021-03-25T07:03:28.668Z"
}Create and read data demos with Postman:
In addition to the simple method of using curl or Postman to create data above, Parse also provides a multi-language SDK (iOS, Android, PHP, etc.). For more details, please refer to the official Parse documentation at http://docs.parseplatform.org/
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