Impact of Firebase CocoaPods deprecation on Expo managed apps

[appsgenie]

Hi, I’m trying to understand how Firebase’s October 2026 CocoaPods deprecation affects Expo managed apps using React Native Firebase.

My app is Expo managed, built with EAS/prebuild, and I don’t have nor keep an ios/ folder committed.
Packages used like:

"@react-native-firebase/app": "^23.4.1",
"@react-native-firebase/auth": "^23.4.1",
"@react-native-firebase/firestore": "^23.4.1",
"@react-native-firebase/database": "^23.4.1",
"@react-native-firebase/storage": "^23.4.1",
"@react-native-firebase/analytics": "^23.4.1"

Should Expo managed users expect a future RN-Firebase/config-plugin update to handle the migration away from CocoaPods, or will there likely be a manual migration path needed before October 2026?

Thanks!

[grego5]

Overview
What's changing? CocoaPods is moving to a read-only state, and Firebase will stop publishing new versions to CocoaPods in October 2026.
Will my app break? No. Existing versions of Firebase libraries will remain available indefinitely on the CocoaPods registry, and your apps that use those CocoaPod versions will continue to function.
Why migrate? To continue receiving the latest features, performance improvements, and critical fixes, you should migrate use to Swift Package Manager or manual installation.

considering that latest is not your concern being on v23, its irrelevant. Otherwise rb firebase will have to migrate to keep up with updates yes. There's also discord post: We’re writing to inform you that we’ll stop publishing new versions of the Firebase Apple SDK to CocoaPods in October 2026. From that point forward, Firebase packages will only be available from Swift Package Manager or manual installation.