Which protocol does Firebase use to communicate with mobile app?

Question

How does Firebase communicate with my Android app? Does it use HTTP, HTTPS, Websocket or which protocol? I've declared firestore dependency and I call my backend let's say via .subscribe() or .get() methods. Thank you.

Answer 1

Cloud Firestore clients use HTTP/2 connections, not web sockets. Even if you send multiple requests, all of them are sent over a single connection.

On the other hand, the Realtime Database clients will always open a single socket connection between the application and Firebase servers.

More info in the article below:

• HTTP/2 comes to Firebase Hosting