When will Google stop supporting GCM?

Question

Since Firebase will be replacing GCM, I am asking myself how much longer will Google support GCM?

In short: When is the end of life/support of GCM?

Answer 1

Update: Just today, Firebase sent out notice of deprecation emails for GCM.

In 2016, we launched Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM), the successor to Google Cloud Messaging (GCM). As the next evolution of GCM, Firebase Cloud Messaging allows you to send notifications and data messages reliably to iOS, Android, and the Web at no cost. In addition, FCM provides you with new features like the easy-to-use notifications interface in the Firebase console, so you can easily target and test notifications to re-engage your users.

In order to devote more time and attention to improving FCM, today we’re announcing that you must upgrade to FCM in the next year. The GCM server and client APIs are deprecated and will be removed as soon as April 11, 2019. We recommend you upgrade sooner rather than later so you can start taking advantage of the new features in FCM today.

If you have projects that are still using the GCM APIs, you will need to update your client and server code to use FCM before April 11, 2019. Your existing GCM tokens will continue to work with FCM so you won’t lose the ability to send to your existing users.

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As of right now, there is still no official date as to when GCM will be officially deprecated. As seen in the GCM FAQ:

Is GCM going to be deprecated?

We will continue to support the current version of GCM Android and iOS SDKs because we know a lot of developers are using GCM SDKs today to handle notifications, and client app upgrade takes time.

But all new client-side features will be added to FCM SDKs only moving forward. You are strongly encouraged to upgrade to FCM SDKs.

Seeing as there are still a lot of developers who are still using GCM, I'm pretty sure that the support will still continue for quite some time.

However, if you intend to make use of the push notification, I highly suggest proceeding with FCM. Saving the hassle of migration in the future (not that it's that hard tho) and make use of the new features available.