> Horizon is distributed as a standalone server for browser-based JavaScript apps. When you're ready to write custom backend code, you can load the Horizon modules directly in Node.js
This is key. Firebase seems great for quick prototypes, but I never built against it because it was unclear (to me at least) how to deal with cases where you want to leave the sandbox and add custom backend functionality that they haven't built out for you. Horizon seems ideal -- it gives you the ease of use of a turnkey system starting out, with the flexibility to customize backend logic/validation later when you need to. That, plus the fact that it's put together by the awesome RethinkDB team, makes it very interesting to me!
I've setup background workers that connect to a firebase DB to perform business logic / backendy type stuff. It works rather well and they even have a queue collection specifically for this type of thing. You could even setup a daemon on a VPS / EC2 that would in turn fire up AWS lambda procs (node or w/e) to perform w/ your firebase data.
Regardless, I'm very excited to play around w/ Horizon as well.
This is key. Firebase seems great for quick prototypes, but I never built against it because it was unclear (to me at least) how to deal with cases where you want to leave the sandbox and add custom backend functionality that they haven't built out for you. Horizon seems ideal -- it gives you the ease of use of a turnkey system starting out, with the flexibility to customize backend logic/validation later when you need to. That, plus the fact that it's put together by the awesome RethinkDB team, makes it very interesting to me!