Pushover

ALMOST

A weekend of work, and real gaps remain.

Push notifications from your own scripts to your own phone: post to an API and a notification appears, with priorities, sounds and acknowledgement for the urgent ones.

Promptfree, for everyone, and the only version there is

Build push notifications to your own phone.

THE OBSTACLE
- iOS push needs an Apple developer account and a published app. Web push avoids that entirely, and works on iOS as an installed web app

STACK
- An installable web app, a small Node server, the Web Push protocol with VAPID keys

SUBSCRIBING
- The app asks for notification permission and registers a push subscription
- Store the subscription with a device label; a person may have several

SENDING
- POST /notify with a title, a message, a priority and an optional URL
- Authenticated by a bearer token per script, so a leaked token can be revoked alone

PRIORITY
- Normal: one notification
- Urgent: re-sent every N minutes until the app reports it was opened, with a cap
- Acknowledgement comes from the service worker posting back, not from the browser being open

RELIABILITY
- A gone or expired subscription is deleted on the 410 response
- Every send logged with its result

Include the VAPID setup, the service worker and the escalation logic.

What you lose

Apps on iOS and Android already published, which is the part that stops most people — you would need developer accounts and a release process
Push delivery through Apple and Google, with the certificate and token handling that involves
Emergency priority that repeats until acknowledged, which is what makes it usable for alerting

If you would rather not build

Web push, which needs no app store at all

The escape hatch

open source · no votes, no paid placement

ntfy

Self-hosted pub-sub notifications with published iOS and Android apps.

binwiederhier/ntfyfree · open source

Gotify

A small self-hosted notification server with its own Android client.

gotify/serverfree · open source

Why this verdict

our own opinion · changed only by a person

60/100

Verdict kinda at 60. Web push replaces most of this without an app store account; the escalating urgent priority is the part worth building carefully.

History

tracked since 10 Aug 2026 · nothing is ever overwritten

Interest · last 30 dayspeak 1/day

0113 Jul18 Jul23 Jul28 Jul2 Aug7 Aug11 Aug

— views— prompt copies none yet— votes none yet

Questions about Pushover

answered from the record above

Is Pushover free?

No — the plan we track is $0.40 a month. A one-off $4.99 per platform rather than a subscription; the figure shown spreads that over a year.

Can you replace Pushover by building your own?

ALMOST. A weekend of work, and real gaps remain. Replacement score 60 out of 100, build time a weekend. Read what you lose before you decide.

How much does Pushover cost?

$0.40 a month on One-off purchase — $4.80 a year. Recorded 10 Aug 2026.

What do you lose by replacing Pushover?

Apps on iOS and Android already published, which is the part that stops most people — you would need developer accounts and a release process; Push delivery through Apple and Google, with the certificate and token handling that involves; Emergency priority that repeats until acknowledged, which is what makes it usable for alerting. If any of those carry weight for you, keep paying.

Is there an open-source alternative to Pushover?

Yes: ntfy, Gotify. The prompt on this page is for when you want it your way instead.

Related entries

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