Using Firebase and S3

Question

I'm creating an app using firebase and ionic (Angular JS), and I would like to know if its possible to use amazon s3 to host photos, and store the url (from s3) in firebase, and serve it to the user. I would like to do this because firebase can get pricy.

1. Would this be an appropriate use of s3?
2. Also when loading a file from s3 using its url, does this count as a request?
3. If I use s3 for hosting only, where would the cost come from? Would I just be paying fore storage or are there other cost involved?
4. Is this secure?

Answer 1

I highly advise you to take a look at this as it discusses a few important points about your question, that being said. let's get to your question:

Would this be an appropriate use of s3?

This pdf by Amazon goes through a number of general use cases for S3, looking at scenario 4 from the document "Multimedia objects will reside in Amazon S3 while SimpleDB will be tasked with maintaining the continually updated status feeds"

Also when loading a file from s3 using its URL, does this count as a request?

As far as I know yes it counts as a get request and it depends on how you implement the query in your application tho it's worth noting that initially, when you sign-up with Amazon S3, you will receive 5 GB of standard storage, together with 20,000 Get Requests and 2,000 Put Requests.

As for the rest of your enquiries, I think you should move them to separate questions and provide more details as they spawn over a number of topics.