head to head · open source
novu vs Ntfy
novu has 40,008 GitHub stars, 4,496 forks, 105 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Ntfy has 34,288 stars, 1,605 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. novu leads on adoption by 17% (40,008 vs 34,288 stars). novu is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; Ntfy is written in Go under Apache-2.0. novu has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, Ntfy 5%. novu was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (notifications, push-notifications), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| novu | Ntfy | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 34K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.5K | ⑂ 1.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick novu if
- You weight community size — 40K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Ntfy if
- You want the Ntfy feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Ntfy fits your workflow better
About novu
Novu is an open source communication infrastructure platform for building and managing multi channel notifications in products and connecting them to AI agents. It lives in the Node.js/TypeScript ecosystem and targets developers who need to send and receive messages across email, SMS, push, in app inbox, chat, and collaboration tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams.
About Ntfy
ntfy is an HTTP based publish subscribe notification service that delivers push notifications to phones and desktops via simple REST API calls. It operates in the open source notification ecosystem, providing a lightweight alternative to proprietary push notification infrastructure. Users publish messages to topics via standard HTTP methods, and subscribers receive them instantly on registered devices.
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Frequently asked questions
Is novu or Ntfy more popular?
novu has 40,008 GitHub stars and Ntfy has 34,288. novu has the larger community by that measure.
Are novu and Ntfy free?
Both are open source. novu has no licence declared in this registry, and Ntfy is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between novu and Ntfy?
novu is written in TypeScript and Ntfy in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, novu or Ntfy?
Choose novu if you want the larger community (40,008 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Ntfy if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.