The biggest feature I will be looking for in this is a true push to android mobile devices. It looks like you can use the subscribe function for this, but I'd need an android example to get up and running quickly. Right now it seems like firebase is the only game in town for that functionality unless you want to roll your own with websockets or some sort of MQ. Google also strongly encourages use of firebase for that in the TOS in the play store I believe. I'm very excited to see how this progresses.
I also went right to the pricing page to see if you would charge for on-prem hosting, but looks like it is still TBD. I would like the ability to host everything on-prem. Security and encryption would be next on my list of wants after that.
You're correct that the Firebase Cloud Messaging is essentially required for Android push. As of Android 8, Google prevents background connections from being held open by apps, and requires FCM in order to wake up apps (eg: to receive a notification). This is documented here: https://developer.android.com/training/monitoring-device-sta...
If the app is already running (eg: in the foreground), then you can (and probably should) use your own non-FCM connection for sending messages or data.
Thanks for the feedback! We've had a few people asking for on-prem + support, it's looking like it's going to be bumped up the feature queue.
Also thanks for sharing the android use case - we definitely want people to use this directly from the client. We're working hard to get the auth model right for this.
I also went right to the pricing page to see if you would charge for on-prem hosting, but looks like it is still TBD. I would like the ability to host everything on-prem. Security and encryption would be next on my list of wants after that.