NotificationAPI

Best Self Hosted Alternatives to NotificationAPI

A curated collection of the 7 best self hosted alternatives to NotificationAPI.

API-first SaaS for sending multi-channel notifications (email, SMS, push, in-app). Provides message templating, user preference management, event-based routing, delivery tracking and integrations to enable developer-driven notification workflows.

Alternatives List

#1
ntfy

ntfy

ntfy is a lightweight HTTP pub-sub service to send push notifications to phones, desktops, and browsers via PUT/POST or a REST API.

ntfy screenshot

ntfy (pronounced “notify”) is a simple HTTP-based publish/subscribe notification service. It lets apps, servers, and scripts send push notifications to phones, desktops, and web browsers using straightforward HTTP requests.

Key Features

  • Publish messages to topics via HTTP PUT/POST
  • Topics are created dynamically by publishing or subscribing
  • Web app for browser subscriptions with desktop notifications
  • Push delivery to mobile clients (Android and iOS apps are available)
  • Works well for automation and server-to-user alerts without complex integrations

Use Cases

  • Send server and backup job notifications from shell scripts or cron jobs
  • Application alerting (deployments, monitoring events, CI results) via a simple REST-style interface
  • Personal notification hub for homelab events and device automation

Limitations and Considerations

  • If used without accounts/reserved topics, topic names function like shared secrets and should be hard to guess

ntfy is a pragmatic choice when you want a minimal, reliable notification pipeline based on plain HTTP. It is well-suited for automation scenarios and for teams or individuals who prefer a simple pub-sub model over heavy messaging platforms.

28.2kstars
1.1kforks
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#2
Svix

Svix

Svix is an open-source webhook service that handles event ingestion, signing, retries, and endpoint management with scalable delivery and client libraries.

Svix screenshot

Svix is an enterprise-ready webhook service for sending events to customer endpoints reliably and securely. It provides a webhook API and delivery infrastructure so you can implement webhooks without building retries, security, and observability from scratch.

Key Features

  • Webhook message ingestion and dispatch with retry handling and deliverability features
  • Webhook signature verification support (symmetric and asymmetric signing schemes)
  • Endpoint and application management for multi-tenant webhook delivery
  • Optional Redis-backed queuing and caching for higher throughput and resiliency
  • PostgreSQL-backed persistence for events and operational data
  • Security-focused controls such as blocking internal IP dispatch by default (SSRF mitigation)
  • OpenTelemetry support for exporting traces to common observability stacks
  • Official client libraries across multiple languages for API usage and webhook verification

Use Cases

  • Add a production-grade webhook system to a SaaS product with minimal custom infrastructure
  • Deliver event notifications to customer systems with robust retries and signing
  • Centralize webhook operations (testing, debugging, and monitoring) across multiple services

Limitations and Considerations

  • Requires PostgreSQL; Redis is optional but recommended for queueing at scale
  • Internal network delivery is restricted by default and requires explicit subnet allowlisting when needed

Svix is a strong fit for teams that need a secure, scalable webhook platform with a clean API and operational tooling. It helps standardize webhook best practices while reducing the effort and risk of building webhook delivery in-house.

3.1kstars
223forks
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#3
Dittofeed

Dittofeed

Developer-focused platform for automated, omnichannel messaging (email, SMS, push, WhatsApp) with low-code journeys, segmentation, templates, and self-hosting.

Dittofeed screenshot

Dittofeed is an open-source customer engagement platform for automating transactional and marketing messages across multiple channels. It provides developer-focused APIs and SDKs plus low-code GUI tools to build journeys, broadcasts, and personalized templates while supporting self-hosted and cloud deployments.

Key Features

  • Omni-channel delivery: email, SMS, mobile push, webhooks and integrations for channels like WhatsApp and Slack
  • Low-code Journey Builder: drag-and-drop automation with branching, local timezone handling, and analytics per branch
  • Powerful Segmentation: multi-condition, AND/OR segment builder that supports event- and trait-based conditions at scale
  • Template editor: Notion-like low-code editor plus HTML/MJML support and Liquid-style personalization
  • Embeddable components & white-labeling: iframe and headless React components for embedding Dittofeed in third-party apps (embedded features in progressive release)
  • Developer-first APIs & SDKs: REST Admin API, Web/Node.js/React Native SDKs, and Git/branch-based workflows for campaign versioning
  • Scalable infrastructure: designed around Postgres and ClickHouse for storage and analytics and deployable via Docker, Helm, or Kubernetes
  • Observability & deployment tooling: Kubernetes/Helm charts, Docker Compose examples, and monitoring integrations for production readiness

Use Cases

  • Lifecycle marketing automation: onboarding flows, re-engagement, and newsletters driven by user events
  • Transactional messaging: password resets, receipts, appointment reminders, and system alerts across channels
  • Embedded messaging for SaaS: expose messaging controls inside a CRM, franchise platform, or agency product via embeddable components

Limitations and Considerations

  • Enterprise embedding, advanced multi-tenancy, and some white-label features are provided under a licensed/closed offering; the public repo and self-hosted distribution do not include those gated enterprise features
  • Integrations with specific provider features (e.g., advanced ESP or carrier functionality) depend on connectors and third-party provider limits; verify required channel provider support before production roll-out

Dittofeed combines low-code UX with developer-grade APIs and scalable storage to support both self-hosted and cloud use. It is suited for teams that need control over data, want to avoid vendor lock-in, and require flexible, embeddable messaging automation.

2.6kstars
314forks
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#4
Hook0

Hook0

Hook0 is an open-source Webhooks-as-a-Service platform to send events via a single API call with subscriptions, retries, persistence, and monitoring.

Hook0 screenshot

Hook0 is an open-source Webhooks-as-a-Service (WaaS) platform that lets your application deliver webhook events to your users through a single API call. It provides a backend service plus a web dashboard to manage subscriptions, delivery, and debugging.

Key Features

  • JSON REST API to publish events and manage webhook resources
  • Fine-grained webhook subscriptions so users can choose which event types to receive
  • Automatic request retries when endpoints are unreachable
  • Event scoping to control which events are delivered to which subscribers
  • Persistence of events and webhook delivery responses for auditing and debugging
  • Modern web dashboard designed for self-serve, non-technical users

Use Cases

  • Add webhook capabilities to a SaaS product without building a full delivery system
  • Replace polling with real-time push updates to external customers or internal services
  • Asynchronous notifications for long-running jobs (e.g., processing pipelines)

Limitations and Considerations

  • Licensed under SSPLv1, which restricts offering Hook0 as a managed service to others

Hook0 is a practical choice for teams that want robust webhook delivery, retries, and observability packaged into a single platform. It helps standardize webhook management while keeping event delivery reliable and debuggable as your product scales.

1.3kstars
77forks
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#5
Notifo

Notifo

Open-source multi-channel notification service with REST API, management UI, templates and channel abstraction for email, web, push and SMS; built with ASP.NET Core and React.

Notifo screenshot

Notifo is an open-source, multi-channel notification service for applications, e-commerce and publishing scenarios. It provides a REST API and a management UI to create templates, manage users and subscriptions, and deliver notifications across channels.

Key Features

  • Rich REST API with OpenAPI-style documentation for creating events, users and subscriptions
  • Management UI for notification templates, users, projects, subscriptions and settings
  • Email template support with MJML and Liquid-style templating
  • Channel abstraction with adapters for Email (Amazon SES), Web (SignalR / sockets), Web Push, Mobile Push (Firebase) and SMS (MessageBird)
  • Reliable delivery with retry mechanisms, queues and schedulers for undelivered or unconfirmed notifications
  • Topic-based subscription model (hierarchical topic paths) and per-topic user preferences
  • Tracking of read/confirmed notifications and delivery reporting
  • Web plugin / overlay to embed notifications into client applications

Use Cases

  • Customer alerts and marketing notifications for e-commerce (price drops, order updates)
  • Real-time notifications for collaboration and task management systems (project/task events)
  • Publishing and news delivery where users subscribe to topics or categories for updates

Limitations and Considerations

  • Project is marked beta: some channels/features (notably mobile push and email integrations) have limited production usage
  • Currently relies on MongoDB as primary datastore; multi-database support is planned but not complete
  • Provider ecosystem is limited out of the box (specific providers implemented; adding new email/SMS providers requires development)
  • Tests and automated API/UI test coverage are limited and further hardening of queues/schedulers is recommended

Notifo is suitable for teams wanting a self-hostable notification platform with topic-based subscriptions and multi-channel delivery. It combines an ASP.NET Core backend and a React/TypeScript frontend and is intended for integration into web and mobile applications.

845stars
82forks
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#6
Operational

Operational

Open-source event tracker for tech products: ingest key events, send push notifications, run webhook actions, and monitor critical workflows in real time.

Operational screenshot

Operational is an open-source event tracking and alerting tool designed for product teams and SaaS operators to monitor critical events and receive real-time notifications. It focuses on high-value operational events (signups, cronjobs, payments, webhooks) rather than broad product analytics.

Key Features

  • Real-time timeline of incoming events with push notifications to web and mobile (PWA) clients
  • Action Buttons on events to trigger webhooks or run actions within your product
  • Support for nested contexts (events-in-events) to represent complex workflows
  • Lightweight SDKs for easy ingestion from applications and services
  • Built with a simple stack (Node.js / Express backend, Vue 3 frontend) and stores data in MySQL via Prisma; optional analytics/backends can be added
  • Designed for low dependencies and straightforward self-hosting using Docker or standard Node tooling

Use Cases

  • Receive immediate alerts for high-priority product events such as new signups, payments, or failed jobs
  • Debug and trace webhooks or cronjobs by ingesting and inspecting structured JSON event payloads
  • Provide on-call or operations teams a lightweight timeline and actionable events to resolve incidents quickly

Limitations and Considerations

  • Not a replacement for full product analytics platforms; optimized for tracking key operational events rather than high-volume behavioral analytics
  • SDK coverage is smaller than large analytics vendors; additional language wrappers may be required for some stacks

Operational provides a focused, developer-friendly way to surface and act on critical events in your product. It is built to be easy to self-host, extend, and integrate into existing workflows.

422stars
13forks
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#7
Frigate-Notify

Frigate-Notify

Lightweight Go service that forwards events from a standalone Frigate NVR to Discord, Matrix, SMTP, webhooks and many services (via Apprise). Supports MQTT or direct API and Docker.

Frigate-Notify screenshot

Frigate-Notify is a lightweight Go application that forwards event notifications from a standalone Frigate NVR to a variety of notification endpoints. It can consume events via MQTT or directly from the Frigate API and dispatch alerts to many services either natively or through the Apprise API.

Key Features

  • Event ingestion via MQTT or direct Frigate API polling
  • Multiple notification outputs: Discord, Gotify, Matrix, Mattermost, Ntfy, Pushover, Signal, SMTP, Telegram, Webhook and many more via Apprise
  • Lightweight Go binary with official Docker image for easy deployment
  • YAML-based configuration with an example config file for mapping events to notification targets
  • Aliveness probe via HTTP GET to integrate with uptime/healthcheck tools
  • Designed for standalone Frigate installations; Home Assistant not required

Use Cases

  • Send instant alerts from a home or small-business Frigate NVR to chat apps and mobile push services
  • Integrate Frigate events into automation pipelines or incident workflows via webhooks or Apprise-backed endpoints
  • Monitor Frigate health using the built-in aliveness endpoint combined with uptime checks

Limitations and Considerations

  • Configuration is file-based (YAML); there is no built-in web UI for managing notification rules
  • Some notification channels rely on external services or the Apprise API, which may require additional setup or credentials

Frigate-Notify is suited for users who want a simple, container-friendly bridge from Frigate events to many notification endpoints. It emphasizes lightweight operation and wide integration coverage rather than a graphical management interface.

315stars
30forks
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Why choose an open source alternative?

  • •Data ownership: Keep your data on your own servers
  • •No vendor lock-in: Freedom to switch or modify at any time
  • •Cost savings: Reduce or eliminate subscription fees
  • •Transparency: Audit the code and know exactly what's running