Posted by Paul McReynolds, Product Manager, G Suite Developer Platform

We launched Google Realtime API in 2013 to help developers build collaborative apps using familiar JSON-based data models, while leaving the complexities of real-time synchronization to the API. Since then, we've developed other fast, flexible cloud-based storage solutions like Google Cloud SQL and Google Cloud Firestore. As a result, we’ve decided to deprecate Realtime API in favor of these new, powerful solutions.

We’re investing heavily in Google Cloud Platform, as well as Firebase—our mobile development platform—to help developers build scalable, performant applications. While these solutions aren't a direct analog to the Drive Realtime API, we're confident they can meet most of your needs:

• Google Cloud SQL: Fully-managed database service that makes it easy to set up, maintain, manage, and administer your relational PostgreSQL and MySQL databases in the cloud. 
• Firebase Realtime Database: Cloud-hosted NoSQL database that lets you store and sync data between your users in real-time. 
• Cloud Firestore: We recently announced Cloud Firestore to help developers build responsive apps that work regardless of network latency or Internet connectivity. If you're curious about Firebase Realtime Database vs. Cloud Firestore, we've got you covered.

Existing Realtime API client applications will continue to work normally until December 11, 2018, but we are no longer accepting new clients of the API. After the API is decommissioned, to facilitate migration, we will continue to provide a mechanism for applications to access document contents as JSON.

More specific deprecation timelines 

We know developers and partners have come to rely on Realtime API and that migration may be a significant effort. We hope that the deprecation timelines summarized below allow for a smooth transition.


1 Projects which accessed the Realtime API prior to November 28, 2017 (including your projects listed below) will continue to function as before. All other projects, including new projects, will be blocked from accessing the Realtime API.

Migration tips 

Applications using the Realtime API will need to migrate to another data store. Our migration guide provides instructions on how to export Realtime document data and also how that data can be imported into Google Cloud Firestore. After Realtime API is shut down, we will continue to provide a means for exporting Realtime document contents as JSON.

Additional information and support 

You can read more about the deprecation in our documentation. If you have questions that aren’t answered there, see the support page for how to get help.