Self-Hosting Ntfy: Push Notifications for Everything
Ntfy sends push notifications to your phone from any script or application. Simple HTTP API, no app signup required.
What Is Ntfy?
Ntfy (pronounced "notify") sends push notifications via a simple HTTP API. Any script, cron job, or application can send you a notification by posting to a URL.
How Simple?
Send a notification:
curl -d "Backup completed successfully" https://ntfy.yourdomain.com/backups
That's it. Your phone gets a push notification.
Use Cases
Backup Notifications
Restic backup script sends "Backup complete" or "Backup FAILED" notification.
Cron Job Monitoring
End of every cron job: send success/failure to ntfy. Know immediately if something broke.
Server Alerts
Disk space above 90%? CPU sustained above 80%? Send a notification.
Deployment Notifications
CI/CD pipeline completes: "v2.3.1 deployed to production."
Home Automation
Doorbell pressed, motion detected, temperature alert — all as push notifications.
Uptime Monitoring
Uptime Kuma can send alerts via ntfy when services go down.
Features
Priority Levels
curl -H "Priority: urgent" -d "Database is down!" https://ntfy.example.com/alerts
Levels: min, low, default, high, urgent. High/urgent bypass Do Not Disturb.
Attachments
curl -T report.pdf https://ntfy.example.com/reports
Send files along with notifications.
Actions
Add clickable actions to notifications:
curl -H "Actions: view, Open Dashboard, https://grafana.example.com" -d "Alert triggered" https://ntfy.example.com/alerts
Scheduled Delivery
curl -H "Delay: 30m" -d "Check on deployment" https://ntfy.example.com/reminders
Topics
Topics are notification channels. Subscribe to different topics for different categories of notifications.
Mobile Apps
Ntfy has apps for:
Subscribe to your server's topics and receive push notifications.
Deployment
1. Deploy Ntfy on TinyPod
2. Install the mobile app
3. Subscribe to your topics
4. Start sending notifications from scripts
Resources: 1 CPU, 256 MB RAM. Extremely lightweight.