Building my own tools

 Another tool I’m thinking about replacing with my own version is Firebase Remote Config.  In reality all it does is store a dictionary of values for your app to fetch and your app connects to it with a web socket.  If the dictionary gets an update any app connected updates right away, or at least that’s the theory.  In reality would it really that important for a config to be that responsive?  Wouldn’t a single request to your own server, delivering a JSON payload on app launch solve the same problem?  For my purposes, yes.

 I’ve also been having trouble with Firebase real time data options because they don’t always behave like I expect them to.  I may spend some time putting together a quick Vapor web socket server to replace that as well.  Then I can have a little more control over my data, I can add image sharing capabilities as well without worrying about running over some small cap of data.  For $35/month I have a nice DigitalOcean server with unlimited subdomains, 2GB to play with and an additional 100GB of storage attached.  I can do a lot on my own with that.