Two push notification providers, compared on price, features and ratings, so you can pick fast.
Updated October 2026
THE VERDICT
Airship wins on developer experience and features. Firebase FCM wins on reviews.
Airship and Firebase FCM take different pricing approaches. Firebase FCM rates higher with developers (4.5 vs 3.6 on G2). Pick based on volume and team, and the scorecard below breaks down where each one leads.
Winner cells are tinted, green where Airship leads, violet where Firebase FCM does.
FAQ
Firebase FCM rates higher on G2 (4.5 vs 3.6). Ratings are aggregated from public review platforms as of the date shown.
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.
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.
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.
Why not both?
Use both behind one API.
Route Airship, Firebase FCM, or both, and switch providers without changing your code. Courier sits in front of every channel.
Pricing, plans and feature availability as of October 2026 and may change. Ratings are aggregated from public review platforms. Firebase FCM is a Google product.