The 'Hidden Technical Debt' of Using Firebase Too Long

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When building an MVP, Firebase is often the default choice. It's fast, real-time, and handles authentication out of the box. For 0 to 1, it's hard to beat.

But for 1 to 10? It can become a silent killer of velocity.

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The "Schema-less" Trap

The biggest selling point of NoSQL stores like Firestore—"flexible schema"—is often its biggest long-term liability. In the early days, dumping JSON objects is liberating. But as your application logic grows, you inevitably need relationships.

You start writing code like this:

// The "N+1" nightmare in client-side code
const user = await getUser(userId);
const posts = await getPostsForUser(user.id);
const comments = await Promise.all(posts.map(p => getComments(p.id)));

Suddenly, a simple dashboard load triggers 50+ network requests. You try to fix it with denormalization (duplicating data), and now you have a consistency problem.

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When to Switch?

I recommend evaluating a migration to a relational database (like PostgreSQL via Supabase or Neon) when:

1. Relational Complexity: Your data model has more than 3 levels of nested relationships.
2. Reporting Needs: You need to run aggregations (SUM, AVG) that Firestore doesn't support natively without cloud functions.
3. Type Safety: You want your database schema to drive your TypeScript types, not the other way around.

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The Migration Path

It doesn't have to be a rewrite. I often use PostgreSQL for the core data and keep Firebase Auth for identity management. This "hybrid" approach gives you the best of SQL querying power with the ease of Firebase's auth SDKs.

The "technical debt" isn't Firebase itself—it's using a document store for relational problems. Recognizing that mismatch is the first step to scaling.