Firebase is a Backend-as-a-Service — BaaS — that started as a YC11 startup and grew up into a next-generation app-development platform on Google Cloud Platform.

In this article, I’m going to share how to integrate Google Firebase in Laravel application. Let’s get started:

Table of Contents

1. Create Firebase Project
2. Install Package
3. Create Controller
4. Define Routes
5. Run and Test

Create Firebase Project

Go to Firebase and create a project. After creating the project, go to the Setting->Project Settings->Service accounts. We need to download the Firebase Admin SDK configuration file.

Click “Generate new private key” and it will download in a JSON file. Rename the file as firebase_credentials.json.

Install Package

Open Laravel application in terminal and install kreait/laravel-firebase package:

composer require kreait/laravel-firebase

Move the firebase_credentials.json file to the public folder of you app. Open .env file and addFIREBASE_CREDENTIALS variable like this:

FIREBASE_CREDENTIALS=/path/public/firebase_credentials.json

I’m working on localhost and the file path: E:\laragon\www\laravel\public\firebase_credentials.json

Note: You can use config file too. Please read this configuration.

Create Controller

Let’s create a controller named FirebaseDBController:

php artisan make:controller FirebaseDBController

Open the controller from app\Http\Controllers folder and paste this code:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class FirebaseDBController extends Controller
{
    private $database;

    public function __construct() {
        $this->database = app('firebase.database');
    }

    /**
     * Insert data.
     */
    public function insert() {
        $newPost =  $this->database
            ->getReference('blog/posts')
            ->push([
                'title' => "Title of Article",
                'description' => "This is an article"
            ]);

        return response()->json($newPost->getvalue());
    }

    /**
     * Retrieve data.
     */
    public function getData() {
        $data = $this->database->getReference('blog/posts')->getvalue();

        return response()->json($data);
    }

    /**
     * Update data.
     */
    public function update() {
        $post_id = "-M56ibO-en8Z9O5ryzjK";

        // new values
        $postData = [
            'title' => 'My awesome post title',
            'description' => 'This text should be longer',
        ];

        $updates = [
            'blog/posts/'.$post_id => $postData,
        ];

        $update = $this->database->getReference()->update($updates);

        return response()->json($update->getvalue());
    }

    /**
     * Delete data.
     */
    public function delete() {
        $post_id = "-M56jWfY-f7mHJYc5MtL";

        $delete = $this->database->getReference('blog/posts/'.$post_id)->remove();
    }

    /**
     * Delete all data.
     */
    public function deleteAll() {
        $delete = $this->database->getReference('blog/posts')->remove();
    }
}

I’ve written CURD functions to store/delete data from realtime firebase database.

Define Routes

Let’s create some routes for the FirebaseDBController.

Route::prefix('firebase')->group(function () {
    Route::get('insert', 'FirebaseDBController@insert');
    Route::get('get_data', 'FirebaseDBController@getData');
    Route::get('update', 'FirebaseDBController@update');
    Route::get('delete', 'FirebaseDBController@delete');
    Route::get('delete_all', 'FirebaseDBController@deleteAll');
});

Run and Test

Now run the project and visit the routes to check data is saving/deleting from realtime database or not.

I’ve visited http://example.test/firebase/insert and checked realtime database from firebase console:

So, firebase is connected to our Laravel app & realtime database is working. Like the realtime database, now you can test FCM, Dynamic Links, Auth etc. Just take a look at laravel-firebase’s documentation.

The article is over. Thanks for reading.