Google to Retire Firebase Studio, Points Developers to Antigravity and AI Studio

Google is winding down Firebase Studio, its browser-based coding environment, and steering developers toward two newer tools built around AI: Antigravity and Google AI Studio. The company said in March that it was "sunsetting" the IDE as part of an effort to "streamline your workflow and make it clearer where you should start building."

The window for new users has already closed. Google stopped allowing new workspaces and sign-ups on June 22. Existing developers have until March 22, 2027 to export their projects to another IDE before Firebase Studio shuts down for good and any remaining data is deleted. Until then, the tool sits in limbo, and choosing a replacement depends largely on how much AI a developer wants in the process.

Firebase Studio was designed to connect directly to Firebase, Google's suite of backend services spanning databases and web hosting. It included an AI chatbot that could prototype and adjust apps, but most of the environment was still built around editing code by hand. Google's newer tools assume a different workflow, one where projects often begin with a prompt. Since Firebase itself isn't going anywhere and both new tools can connect to it, Google evidently decided a dedicated Firebase IDE was no longer necessary.

Developers who want to stay with Google have two paths. Google AI Studio runs in the browser and, according to Google, offers "the fastest path from prompt to full-stack production app," with an interface centered on chatting with AI. Antigravity is a desktop app that runs locally, built for people who want to work directly with their code while also directing multiple AI agents. It notably supports AI models beyond Google's own.

Alternatives outside Google's ecosystem follow similar logic, positioning the developer as a supervisor of agents that handle the first pass. Among the options are Cursor, Claude Code from Anthropic and Codex from OpenAI. Cost will likely weigh as heavily as interface when developers decide where to go next, since AI-assisted coding can mean subscriptions, token fees, or both.