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I've just learned that Google Realtime API is now deprecated. It is suggested to migrate to Firestore instead. However, Firestore's model is not built around Google Drive so it will not be possible to manage and share real-time documents via Google Drive.

Is there any alternative migration path that would keep files stored in Google Drive?

For example, real time documents may have a simple API endpoint that would allow to get and save them as pure JSON. This would mean that we can keep using Google Drive to store our data and only use Firestore to handle real-time editing sessions (if this is needed).

Jaroslav Benc
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  • Questions asking us to recommend or find a book, tool, software library, tutorial or other off-site resource are off-topic for Stack Overflow as they tend to attract opinionated answers and spam. Instead, describe the problem and what has been done so far to solve it. – Linda Lawton - DaImTo Dec 01 '17 at 10:02
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    For better or worse, Google uses this as its support forum for the realtime API. This is one of the only ways to ask them a question. There is also a valid question hidden in there, though they don't lead with it. Just a thought. – HeyHeyJC Dec 03 '17 at 17:01

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I don't think you'll find any off-the-shelf solutions natively supporting Drive as a backing source, but if you can export your data model as JSON, Convergence can probably handle it. (In full transparency, I am a founder)

It is almost certainly the quickest way to get back to feature parity with the Realtime API, and probably beyond, as we have first-class support for UX features you probably want as well, beyond just the data synchronization.

alalonde
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  • When is it coming out of beta? Also, please fix the mobile version, things not wrapping. – Ravenous Apr 17 '18 at 09:26
  • We're targeting Q3 2018, but it's already in use in a few production deployments. Going "GA" will be mostly for marketing purposes and ease of signup. Thanks for the mobile tip. – alalonde Apr 17 '18 at 23:13
  • Gosh. I get you're a business, but your site would have been a hard-sell in the 90's. A blog in which 'We share thoughts and best practices around developing applications with rich collaboration features'? Let me summarize the thoughts and best-practices in every post: 'buy Convergence'. – HeyHeyJC Apr 21 '18 at 10:03
  • Thanks for the feedback! It is timely, as we just posted a [realtime collaboration technology guide](https://convergencelabs.com/realtime-collaboration-technology-guide/) which takes a 10,000 foot view of this space – alalonde May 11 '18 at 17:11
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Yes, you can export your Realtime data via a separate REST API detailed here: Exporting Realtime Data This ability should remain available after the realtime API is turned down on January 15th, 2019, though Google has not stated for how long, AFAIK

(Firestore doesn't seem to offer any Operational-Transform-like conflict resolution, so is not a viable alternative for applications that currently have good reasons to use the realtime API, though that is Google's only suggestion so far.)

HeyHeyJC
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