ntfy

ntfy (pronounced "notify") is a free, open source, self-hosted push notification service that lets any script, app, or service send instant alerts to your phone or desktop using a simple HTTP PUT or POST request. There are no accounts to create, no SDKs to install, and no third-party cloud required. You point a curl command at a topic, and a notification appears on your phone. That's genuinely all there is to it. It runs in Docker, deploys in minutes, and sits quietly in the background doing exactly one job - getting messages from your server to your pocket the moment something happens.

The problem ntfy solves is one every homelabber and developer eventually hits: you have scripts running, backups firing, containers updating, and services monitoring - but no reliable way to know when any of it succeeds or fails without actively going to check. ntfy closes that loop entirely. Publish to a topic from a bash script, a Python app, a cronjob, or a Home Assistant automation, and your phone buzzes within seconds. Because it's self-hosted, your notification data never touches a third-party server, there are no rate limits imposed by someone else's infrastructure, and the whole thing keeps working even if ntfy.sh the public service ever disappears.

What makes ntfy stand out from other notification tools is how little friction it creates. Any language that can make an HTTP request can send a notification - curl, Python, Go, JavaScript, PHP, PowerShell, all of them work out of the box with no library or SDK needed. Beyond plain text alerts, you can attach images and files, add interactive action buttons, set priority levels, tag messages with emojis, and organise everything into separate topics. It also supports UnifiedPush, making it a privacy-first notification backend for other self-hosted apps. Access control, user authentication, and Web Push support round out a tool that looks simple on the surface but goes as deep as you need it to.

Key Features

• HTTP PUT/POST API - send notifications from any language or tool with a single HTTP request, no SDK or library required - curl, Python, Go, PowerShell, and PHP all work out of the box
• Topic-based pub/sub - organise notifications into named topics such as "backups", "security", or "server-health" and subscribe to only what you need on each device
• File and image attachments - send images, videos, and documents directly to your phone alongside the notification message
• Interactive action buttons - add clickable buttons to notifications that open URLs, trigger HTTP requests, or copy text to clipboard on Android and web
• Priority levels and emoji tags - set message urgency from min to max and tag notifications with emoji short codes for instant visual triage
• UnifiedPush support - act as a UnifiedPush distributor so other self-hosted apps like Nextcloud and Element can deliver notifications through your own server
• Access control and user authentication - lock down topics with username and password authentication, set per-topic permissions, and restrict public access entirely
• Web Push support - receive notifications in the browser even when the ntfy web app is closed, using the RFC8030 Web Push standard
• iOS and Android apps - free native apps available on the App Store, Google Play, and F-Droid, with instant delivery mode and full self-hosted server support
• Docker deployment - single-container setup via Docker Compose with a tiny footprint, straightforward volume mapping, and no external dependencies

Who It's For

ntfy is the go-to self-hosted notification tool for homelabbers, developers, and sysadmins who want a dead-simple way to get alerts out of their servers, scripts, and automations without signing up for a third-party service or wrestling with complex notification infrastructure. It's an ideal lightweight alternative to Gotify, and a natural fit as the notification backend for Home Assistant, Uptime Kuma, Watchtower, and Portainer. If you've ever written a script and wished it could just tap you on the shoulder when it was done - ntfy is exactly what you have been looking for.