Aruma – clean-room self-hosted backend for the official Firebase SDKs
Aruma has launched a self-hosted backend compatible with official Firebase SDKs, requiring only a single Go binary and PostgreSQL database.
Aruma serves Firebase Auth, Realtime Database, Cloud Storage, Security Rules and Firestore-compatible Document Database through the official Firebase SDKs. For supported setups, developers only need to change a configuration file rather than modify their application code. The project targets developers and teams using Firebase who want to run their backends on small VPS or their own servers with controlled PostgreSQL data.
Current Status
The project is currently pre-1.0, with the latest release being v0.4.0. Part of the Document Database verification has not yet run, as noted in the changelog. Despite this, Aruma's behavior is checked against real Firebase and official emulators, with the official Firebase test suites running against it.
Installation Process
Aruma can be installed via Docker with PostgreSQL 18 or by downloading binaries for Linux, macOS and Windows (amd64 and arm64). Without Docker, users can build from source using Go 1.27.3 and Node 24. The quick start process involves cloning the repository, setting environment variables, and running Docker Compose to generate a one-time setup code.
SDK Compatibility
Applications maintain the official Firebase SDKs and take configuration files from Aruma. For platforms with Google's hosts compiled in, small packages under sdk/ redirect the SDK to the user's server with minimal configuration. iOS requires a patched build of the Storage SDK, while Flutter Storage needs one helper call (fromArumaUrl). Servers verifying ID tokens use Aruma's admin libraries.
Notably, Aruma does not serve Cloud Functions. If an app signs in with Aruma Auth and calls a function with httpsCallable, the SDK sends the user's Aruma ID token to Google, which is not recommended.
Management Dashboard
Each Aruma server includes an embedded dashboard for creating projects and apps, managing users, editing rules, browsing data and files, and downloading configuration files. The dashboard is part of the same Go binary as the backend services.
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