The Firebase Realtime Database is a cloud-hosted database. Data is stored as
JSON and synchronized in realtime to every connected client. When you build
cross-platform apps with the Android, Apple platforms, and JavaScript SDKs,
all of your clients share one Realtime Database instance and automatically receive
updates with the newest data.

You can use any Firebase Realtime Database URL as a REST endpoint. All you need
to do is append `.json` to the end of the URL and send a request from
your favorite HTTPS client.

> [!NOTE]
> **Note:** If you're interacting with Firebase Realtime Database from a privileged server environment, consider using the official [Firebase Admin SDKs](https://firebase.google.com/docs/admin/setup.md.txt) (available for Node.js, Java, Python, Go, and C#).

## Create an Account

First sign up for an account at no cost in the [Firebase console](https://console.firebase.google.com/). A new
Firebase app will be created for you with a unique URL ending in
`firebaseio.com`. You'll use this URL to authenticate your users and
to store and sync data to the app's database.

Within the [Firebase console](https://console.firebase.google.com/) you can create, manage and delete Firebase
apps. Clicking on a specific Firebase app lets you view and modify your app's
database in real time. In your app dashboard, you can also set
Firebase Realtime Database Security Rules, manage your
app's authentication, deploys, and view analytics.

## Create a Database

1. In the Firebase console, navigate to **Databases \& Storage** \>
   [**Realtime Database**](https://console.firebase.google.com/project/_/database/).

2. Click **Create database**.

3. Select a starting mode for your Firebase Security Rules:

   Test mode

   :   Good for getting started with the mobile and web client libraries,
       but allows anyone to read and overwrite your data. After testing, **make
       sure to review the [Understand Firebase Realtime Database Rules](https://firebase.google.com/docs/database/security.md.txt)
       section.**

   :

       > [!NOTE]
       > **Note:** If you create a database in Test mode and make no changes to the default world-readable and world-writeable Security Rules within a trial period, you will be alerted by email, then your database rules will deny all requests. Note the expiration date during the Firebase console setup flow.

   :   To get started with the web, Apple, or Android SDK, select testmode.

   Locked mode

   :   Denies all reads and writes from mobile and web clients.
       Your authenticated application servers can still access your database.

4. Choose a location for the database.

   Depending on the
   [location of the database](https://firebase.google.com/docs/projects/locations.md.txt#rtdb-locations), the
   URL for the new database will be in one of the following forms:
   - `DATABASE_NAME.firebaseio.com` (for
     databases in `us-central1`)

   - `DATABASE_NAME.REGION.firebasedatabase.app`
     (for databases in all other locations)

5. Click **Done**.

When you enable Realtime Database, it also enables the API in the
[Cloud API Manager](https://console.cloud.google.com/projectselector/apis/api/firebasedatabase.googleapis.com/overview).

## Next Steps

- Learn how to [structure data](https://firebase.google.com/docs/database/rest/structure-data.md.txt) for Realtime Database.
- [Save data.](https://firebase.google.com/docs/database/rest/save-data.md.txt)
- [Retrieve data.](https://firebase.google.com/docs/database/rest/retrieve-data.md.txt)
- [View your database in the Firebase console.](https://console.firebase.google.com/project/_/database/data)