1. I agree Firebase is great for Hackatons. 2. Iterating multiple records is a pain and the indexing firebase provides is not very helpful. 3. By caching computation I mean getting raw data from the database processed and digested (i.e converting a costly top 10 to an html fragment you can use later). 4. Storing records with firebase-admin is like a super-user, it ignores all security AND validation rules. 5. Cloud functions are not cool.