Firestore Enterprise Gets Pipeline Operations, Over 100 New Query Features

Google has overhauled Firestore Enterprise edition's query engine, adding Pipeline operations that let developers chain together multiple query stages for complex aggregations, array operations, and regex matching. The update removes Firestore's longstanding query limitations and makes indexes optional, putting the database on par with other major NoSQL platforms.

Pipeline operations work through sequential stages that transform data inside the database. Developers can now unnest arrays, aggregate results, and filter on aggregation outputs—capabilities that weren't previously available. Google claims the new engine supports over 100 query features, available now in preview for Android, iOS, web, and admin SDKs, with Flutter, Unity, and C++ support coming later.

The Firebase team illustrated the change with a recipe app example. Previously, if tags were stored as arrays within recipe documents, there was no way to extract and count them within a query to find trending tags. Developers had to maintain separate tag metadata. With Pipeline operations, a single query can unnest the tag array, count occurrences across all recipes, group by tag name, sort by popularity, and return the top ten.