Question 1

Which has better reviews, Airship or Firebase FCM?

Accepted Answer

Firebase FCM rates higher on G2 (4.5 vs 3.6). Ratings are aggregated from public review platforms as of the date shown.

Question 2

How much does Airship cost?

Accepted Answer

Airship does not publish list prices. Pricing is custom and usage-based, driven mainly by monthly active users (MAU), message volume, and the channels and features selected. Third-party and industry estimates commonly place annual deals starting around 25,000 to 30,000 USD for smaller deployments, scaling into the hundreds of thousands for large enterprises.

Question 3

Is Firebase Cloud Messaging free to use?

Accepted Answer

Yes. FCM message delivery is completely free with no usage limits, so you can send unlimited push notifications to Android, iOS, and web apps at no cost. There is no paid tier or per-message charge for FCM itself. Related Firebase services like Cloud Functions or Firestore have their own pay-as-you-go pricing, but sending push through FCM is free.

Question 4

Can I use Airship and Firebase FCM together?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Many teams route different message types through different providers or fail over between them. Courier lets you send through both behind a single API and switch providers without changing your code.

Capability	Airship↗	Firebase FCM↗
Pricing
Starting paid plan	—	$0/mo
Free tier	None (sales-led pilot only)	Unlimited (free)
Pricing model	Quote-based; per-MAU + messaging volume + channels	Free
Platforms
iOS	Yes	Yes
Android	Yes	Yes
Web push	Yes	Yes
Desktop	Yes	Yes
Capabilities
Segmentation	Yes	Yes
In-app messaging	Yes	Yes
Journeys / automation	Yes	No
A/B testing	Yes	Yes
Geofencing	Yes	No
Rich media	Yes	Yes
Developer experience
Official SDKs	iOS/tvOS/visionOS, Android/FireOS, Web, React Native, Flutter, Cordova, Capacitor, Unity, .NET MAUI	iOS, Android, Web, Flutter, Unity, C++; Admin SDK: Node, Java, Python, Go, C#
REST API	Yes	Yes
Event webhooks	Yes	No
Compliance
SOC 2	Yes	Yes
HIPAA	No	No
GDPR	Yes	Yes
Support
Support channels	Support portal, knowledge base, enterprise CSM	Docs & community (paid via GCP support)
24/7 support	—	No

Airship vs Firebase FCM

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Feature by feature, how do they stack up?

Which should you choose?

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