head to head · open source
Ntfy vs Hyvor Relay
Ntfy has 34,282 GitHub stars, 1,605 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Hyvor Relay has 897 stars, 63 forks, 56 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Ntfy leads on adoption by 3,722% (34,282 vs 897 stars). Ntfy is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Hyvor Relay is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0. Ntfy has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, Hyvor Relay 7%. Hyvor Relay was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| Ntfy | Hyvor Relay | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 34K | ★ 897 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 63 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Ntfy if
- You weight community size — 34K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Hyvor Relay if
- You want the Hyvor Relay feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and Hyvor Relay fits your workflow better
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.
About Hyvor Relay
Hyvor Relay is an open source email API aimed at developers, written primarily in PHP with Symfony for the API backend and Go for the email workers, webhook handlers, DNS server, and incoming SMTP server. The frontend is built with SvelteKit and the Hyvor Design System, and PostgreSQL serves both as the database and as the queue. It lives in the PHP and Go ecosystems, is licensed under AGPL 3.0, and is positioned as a cloud and self hosted alternative to SES, Mailgun, and SendGrid.
read the full Hyvor Relay overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ntfy or Hyvor Relay more popular?
Ntfy has 34,282 GitHub stars and Hyvor Relay has 897. Ntfy has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ntfy and Hyvor Relay free?
Both are open source. Ntfy is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Hyvor Relay under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ntfy and Hyvor Relay?
Ntfy is written in Go and Hyvor Relay in PHP. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Ntfy or Hyvor Relay?
Choose Ntfy if you want the larger community (34,282 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Hyvor Relay if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.