Vue.js Firebase Integration with VueFire

Firebase is one of the most painless ways to set up a hosted realtime database. VueFire makes life even easier by providing direct mapping and updates to firebase objects through Vue’s reactivity system. Combined, the result is wonderfully simple and clear.

Usage

Install firebase and vuefire in your Vue.js project, through NPM or Yarn.

yarn add firebase vuefire

npm install firebase vuefire --save

Then, in your app’s main file, enable the VueFire plugin.

import './firebase';

import Vue from 'vue';
import VueFire from 'vuefire';
import App from 'App.vue';

Vue.use(VueFire);

new Vue({
  el: '#app',
  render: h => h(App)
});

We also need to initiate the Firebase connection. Create a new file called firebase.js.

import Firebase from 'firebase'

const firebaseApp = Firebase.initializeApp({
  // Populate your firebase configuration data here.
  ...
});

// Export the database for components to use.
// If you want to get fancy, use mixins or provide / inject to avoid redundant imports.
export const db = firebaseApp.database();

Now, we can access data in our Firebase database directly from Vue components.

<template>
  <p v-for="user of users">
    {{user.name}}
  </p>
</template>
<script>
import {db} from './firebase';

export default {
  data() {
    return {
      users: {}
    }
  },

  firebase: {
    users: {
      source: db.ref('users'),
      // Optional, allows you to handle any errors.
      cancelCallback(err) {
        console.error(err);
      }
    }
  }
}
</script>

Whenever the users collection updates, the users data object will update on the client as well. How’s that for a seamless reactive database?

Modifying data

You can modify arrays as normal in this.$firebaseRefs. (ie. this.$firebaseRefs.users.push({name: 'Tom Bombadil'})). Normal Vue reactivity rules and caveats apply.

Unfortunately, modifying objects can be a bit trickier. That has to be done fairly manually using the firebase ref directly.

updateUserName(user, newName) {
  this.$firebaseRefs.users.child(user['.key']).child('name').set(newName);
}

removeUser(user) {
  this.$firebaseRefs.users.child(user['.key']).remove()
}

You can find more information and documentation in the VueFire repository and Firebase docs.