Quick answer
Google Cloud - Google Cloud wins for most builders who want a broad free tier and room to grow, while Firebase App Hosting wins only if you specifically want a focused hosting product with fewer moving parts.
How the free tiers compare
These two free offers solve different problems. Firebase App Hosting is a narrow deployment product for full-stack web apps, with the free tier built around hosting, build minutes, runtime compute, logging, secrets, and storage. It is easier to reason about if you are shipping an Angular or Next.js app and want one managed path from code to deploy. Google Cloud’s free offering is wider and more fragmented: you get a one-time $300 credit plus a set of always-free quotas across compute, storage, databases, build, monitoring, and APIs. That makes it better for experimentation, side projects, and teams that may later need VMs, BigQuery, GKE, or other services beyond app hosting. The tradeoff is more complexity and a broader platform surface, but also more headroom once you leave the free tier.
App Hosting (Firebase) vs Google Cloud free tier, side by side
| App Hosting (Firebase)FTV 49 | Google CloudFTV 58 | |
|---|---|---|
| Free creditA is a recurring free tier, B starts with a one-time credit plus always-free limits. | None | $300 for new customers |
| Cloud Run requestsSame headline request quota in both offers. | 2 million requests/month | 2 million requests/month |
| Cloud BuildA is monthly, B is daily. | 2,500 build-minutes/month | 120 build-minutes/day |
| Cloud Storage standard storageB does not show the same region restriction in the provided input. | 5 GB-months in us-central1 only | 5 GB-months Standard Storage |
| Secret ManagerA includes access operations and rotation notifications in the provided free tier; B only lists secret versions here. | 6 active secret versions/month and 10,000 access operations/month | 6 secret versions/month |
| Compute Engine VMOnly Google Cloud’s free tier includes a VM quota in the provided data. | Not listed | 1 e2-micro instance/month |
After you outgrow the free tier
Firebase App Hosting uses usage-based billing after the free tier, with no fixed monthly price shown. Google Cloud also uses usage-based pricing for general paid use, but its entry point is broader because the free tier combines a $300 credit with always-free limits across many services. For a small hosted app, Firebase is usually simpler to predict until you hit the quotas; after that, costs rise with hosting usage. Google Cloud is harder to pin down from the provided data because no unit rates are given here, so the first paid cost is best described as variable and service-dependent.
Cost at real usage
| Usage | App Hosting (Firebase) | Google Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| 2 million Cloud Run requests/moBoth listings include 2 million Cloud Run requests in the free tier. | Free (within tier) | Free (within tier) |
| 120 build-minutes/dayFirebase lists monthly build minutes; Google Cloud lists a daily allotment. | ~Free if spread within 2,500 build-minutes/month; above that, usage-based | Free (within tier) |
| 1 e2-micro instance/monthCompute Engine is part of Google Cloud’s free offering, not Firebase App Hosting. | Not available in App Hosting free tier | Free (within tier) |
| 5 GB Cloud StorageBoth provide 5 GB-months of Standard Storage in the free tier, but Firebase’s listing is region-limited. | Free (within tier, us-central1 only) | Free (within tier) |
Estimates, not quotes. Usage-based rates change - verify with the vendor's pricing page before committing.
When to pick each one
Pick App Hosting (Firebase) when…
- You are deploying a single web app and want the hosting layer to stay simple.
- Your stack is centered on Angular or Next.js and you want a managed path for SSR, SSG, and CDN delivery.
- You care about hosting-specific quotas like build minutes, runtime CPU, memory, and logging more than broader cloud primitives.
- You do not expect to move into VMs, Kubernetes, or data warehouse services soon.
Pick Google Cloud when…
- You want to prototype several different kinds of workloads, not just one hosted web app.
- You may need compute, storage, databases, analytics, or AI services later.
- You want a free tier with more categories covered, including Cloud Run, Compute Engine, BigQuery, Firestore, and GKE.
- You can make use of the $300 signup credit for a proof of concept.
- You want a platform that can grow from a small app into a broader cloud setup without switching vendors.
Bottom line
For the most common builder use case, Google Cloud is the better pick because it gives you a broader free tier, a $300 starter credit, and more paths once your project grows beyond a single app host. Firebase App Hosting is the cleaner choice if your only goal is to ship and run one Angular or Next.js app with minimal platform overhead. If you expect to stay inside a hosting-centric workflow, Firebase is simpler. If you may need more than hosting, Google Cloud is the safer long-term starting point.
Read the full listings: App Hosting (Firebase) and Google Cloud. Scores use the FTV methodology at /ftv. Browse more head-to-heads on /compare, or see the top-ranked free tiers on /top.