Firebase Studio vs Antigravity: Which One to Use Now

Firebase Studio vs Antigravity is no longer a choice for new projects: Firebase Studio is sunsetting, and Google names Antigravity as the home for code-first, agentic work. Firebase Studio is a browser-based environment for prototyping and shipping full-stack apps; Antigravity is a desktop, agent-first platform with an IDE, an agent manager and a CLI. If you still have Firebase Studio workspaces, the real question is which successor to move them to, and when.

Checked October 2026 against Google's own pages: the Firebase Studio sunset and migration guide, the Firebase Studio docs, the Antigravity IDE overview, the Antigravity 2.0 overview and Antigravity pricing. This is a documentation-based comparison, not a hands-on benchmark.

The two products come from the same company and overlap in name recognition more than in purpose. Firebase Studio was built so you could open a browser tab and have a running app; Antigravity is built so agents can plan, edit, run and verify code on your own machine. This page clears up where one ends and the other begins, then walks through the migration Google documents. For the wider landscape of coding agents, including Claude Code and Cursor, start with our AI coding tools hub.

The verdict: which one to use now

• Pick Antigravity if you write or read code, worked mostly in Firebase Studio's Code view, imported a repository or template, or want agents that can run terminal commands and drive a browser locally.
• Pick Google AI Studio (not Antigravity) if you built with the App Prototyping agent, prefer prompting to coding, or need everything to run in a browser.
• Stay in Firebase Studio only temporarily: existing workspaces work until March 22, 2027, but you cannot create new ones, so treat any time left as a migration window.

Firebase Studio vs Antigravity: head-to-head

The table compares the two on what they are, where they run and what they cost. Every row comes from Google's documentation and pricing pages.

The status row decides most cases. A tool that stopped accepting new workspaces in June is not a fair head-to-head against one under active development, so the useful comparison is about jobs: what Firebase Studio did well, and which successor does that job now.

What Firebase Studio is, and what it was good at

Google describes Firebase Studio as an agentic, cloud-based development environment that unified Project IDX with Gemini-powered agents (checked October 2026). It has two working modes:

• Prompting without coding. The App Prototyping agent, also called Prototyper, generates full-stack web apps from text, images or drawings, sets up Cloud Firestore and Firebase Authentication when the app needs them, and publishes to Firebase App Hosting.
• Coding with full control. A Code OSS-based editor running on a full Google Cloud virtual machine, with Open VSX extensions, Nix-based environment configuration, Android emulators, web previews and the Firebase Local Emulator Suite.

Its real advantage was zero setup. A browser and a Google account gave you a configured stack, a preview URL to share with testers and a one-click path to App Hosting. That convenience is exactly what Google is splitting up: the prompt-to-app part moves to Google AI Studio, and the code-first part moves to Antigravity.

What Google Antigravity is

Antigravity is a family of agent-first tools that share one agent harness (checked October 2026):

• Antigravity IDE: a full editor with Tab autocompletion, natural-language commands and an agent that can operate across the editor, terminal and browser. Agents report through artifacts: plans, diffs, diagrams, screenshots and browser recordings you can comment on.
• Antigravity 2.0: a standalone desktop app for running several agents in parallel, grouped into projects with their own permissions, Git worktree support and scheduled tasks.
• Antigravity CLI: a lightweight terminal interface to the same agents, aimed at SSH, tmux and headless work.

Antigravity runs on your machine, not in a hosted VM. By default its agents ask before running terminal commands and only read and write inside the folders you give a project, according to the feature overview. You can loosen those presets, which is powerful and worth doing deliberately.

Google Antigravity vs Firebase Studio: where one ends and the other begins

Think of the boundary as three questions: where does the code live, who writes it, and how far can the AI reach.

• Where the code lives. Firebase Studio keeps your project in a cloud workspace. Antigravity works on folders on your computer or in remote development containers you set up.
• Who writes it. Firebase Studio's Prototyper was designed for people who never open the code. Antigravity assumes you will review diffs and plans, even when agents do most of the typing.
• How far the AI reaches. Firebase Studio's Gemini works inside the workspace. Antigravity agents can run commands, actuate Chrome for UI tests and dashboard reads, and run in parallel across projects.

What is the difference between Antigravity and Firebase Studio in practice?

The practical difference shows up in three places: setup, models and lifespan.

Setup. Firebase Studio needed nothing but a browser. Antigravity needs an install, and migrating a Firebase Studio project to it needs Node.js 20 or higher and Firebase CLI 15.10.0 or higher on your machine, per the migration guide (checked October 2026). If your workflow depends on a Chromebook or a locked-down work laptop, that is a real constraint, and Google AI Studio is the better landing spot.

Models. Firebase Studio uses Gemini. Antigravity's pricing page lists Gemini models alongside Claude Sonnet and Opus and gpt-oss-120b as agent models for individuals, and the plans page notes that model availability and rate limits differ by Google AI plan (checked October 2026). If you want to try the same task on different model families, Antigravity is the only one of the two that allows it.

Lifespan. Firebase Studio shuts down on March 22, 2027. Anything you build there now has to move later, so starting new work in it is wasted effort.

Pricing: Firebase Studio vs Antigravity

Firebase Studio access is at no cost for existing workspaces, though integrations such as Firebase App Hosting can require a Cloud Billing account, per the Firebase Studio docs (checked October 2026).

Antigravity lists an individual plan at $0 per month with unlimited Tab completions, unlimited Command requests and basic weekly rate limits. Google AI Pro raises the limits and refreshes quota every five hours until a weekly cap; Ultra has the highest limits. Pro and Ultra subscribers can buy AI credits for overage, and you choose in settings whether credits are used automatically. Bring-your-own API keys are not supported, per the plans page (checked October 2026). Teams can get Antigravity 2.0 and the CLI through Google Cloud with consumption-based pricing.

Hosting costs are separate from both tools. Firestore, Authentication and App Hosting bill the same way whichever editor wrote the code.

How to move a Firebase Studio project to Antigravity

Google documents two routes: let the Antigravity agent convert the project, or export it manually with the Firebase CLI if you would rather not spend AI quota. The agent route, summarized from the official guide:

Antigravity publishes with Firebase agent skills. The Firebase AI assistance docs list them as a Build with Google bundle you can enable globally, or per project with npx skills add firebase/agent-skills --agent=antigravity (checked October 2026). The same skills work with other coding agents, which matters if you later switch tools.

Which builders should use which

If you are building a small SaaS or an internal tool, the split is straightforward. Non-coders who loved Prototyper get the closest equivalent in Google AI Studio, which now has Cloud Firestore and Firebase Authentication built in. Builders who already edit code, wire up payments or need background jobs get more from Antigravity, because its agents can run the test suite, read a dashboard in the browser and work across several folders at once.

Antigravity is also not the only code-first option. If you are choosing an agent for a new codebase rather than migrating an old one, compare it with Claude Code and Cursor; Firebase's own agent skills support all three. For the habits that keep any of these agents from producing a mess, read our vibe coding guide, and if your backend is not Firebase, the Supabase full-stack tutorial covers the common alternative.

When you are ready to turn a prototype into a paid product with auth, billing and a launch plan, our AI SaaS Builder program walks through that build end to end with AI coding agents.

Alternatives if neither fits

• Google AI Studio: browser-based prompt-to-app building with Firestore and Authentication integrated; Google's recommended home for Prototyper users.
• Claude Code: a terminal and IDE coding agent; see the Claude coding guide.
• Cursor or Windsurf: AI-first editors similar in shape to the Antigravity IDE; our Windsurf overview covers the latter.

Firebase Studio vs Antigravity: FAQ