Self-Host ntfy: Push Notifications for Everything 2026

TL;DR

ntfy (Apache 2.0, ~16K GitHub stars, Go) is the simplest self-hosted push notification service. Subscribe to a topic, then send notifications to it with a single curl command — no API keys, no SDKs, no setup on the sender side. Send alerts from cron jobs, shell scripts, CI pipelines, Home Assistant, Uptime Kuma, Grafana, or any tool that can make an HTTP request. PagerDuty charges $19/user/month; ntfy self-hosted is free with no per-notification limits.

Key Takeaways

• ntfy: Apache 2.0, ~16K stars, Go — HTTP pub/sub push notifications
• Zero sender setup: Send with a single curl to any topic URL — no SDK or API key required
• iOS and Android apps: Native apps for receiving notifications with rich features
• Priority levels: Min/low/default/high/urgent — control notification sound and delivery
• Actions: Add clickable action buttons to notifications (URLs, intents, HTTP callbacks)
• Access control: User/password protection for private topics

---

How ntfy Works

Sender (curl/script/app)  →  ntfy server  →  ntfy iOS/Android app
                             (pub/sub)        (subscriber)

Topics are just URL paths — anyone who knows the topic URL can publish or subscribe to it (unless protected with auth).

---

Part 1: Docker Setup

# docker-compose.yml
services:
  ntfy:
    image: binwiederhier/ntfy:latest
    container_name: ntfy
    restart: unless-stopped
    command: serve
    ports:
      - "8080:80"
    volumes:
      - ntfy_cache:/var/cache/ntfy
      - ntfy_data:/etc/ntfy
    environment:
      TZ: America/Los_Angeles
    # For config file (see below), mount it:
    # volumes:
    #   - ./server.yml:/etc/ntfy/server.yml:ro

volumes:
  ntfy_cache:
  ntfy_data:

docker compose up -d

---

Part 2: HTTPS with Caddy

ntfy.yourdomain.com {
    reverse_proxy localhost:8080
}

---

Part 3: Configuration File

For production use, create a config file:

# /etc/ntfy/server.yml (or mount ./server.yml)

# Public base URL (required for iOS notifications):
base-url: "https://ntfy.yourdomain.com"

# Cache for offline message delivery:
cache-file: "/var/cache/ntfy/cache.db"
cache-duration: "12h"

# Auth (enable to protect topics):
auth-file: "/var/lib/ntfy/user.db"
auth-default-access: "deny-all"   # Deny anonymous by default

# Rate limiting:
visitor-request-limit-burst: 60
visitor-request-limit-replenish: "1m"
visitor-subscription-limit: 30
visitor-message-daily-limit: 250

# Attachment support:
attachment-cache-dir: "/var/cache/ntfy/attachments"
attachment-total-size-limit: "5G"
attachment-file-size-limit: "15M"
attachment-expiry-duration: "3h"

# Optional: upstream Firebase for iOS background delivery
# (uses ntfy.sh as relay — set up-stream-base-url to avoid this)
# upstream-base-url: "https://ntfy.sh"

# docker-compose.yml with config file:
services:
  ntfy:
    image: binwiederhier/ntfy:latest
    command: serve --config /etc/ntfy/server.yml
    volumes:
      - ./server.yml:/etc/ntfy/server.yml:ro
      - ntfy_cache:/var/cache/ntfy
      - ntfy_data:/var/lib/ntfy

---

Part 4: Sending Notifications

Simplest possible notification

curl -d "Backup completed" ntfy.yourdomain.com/my-alerts

That's it. Any subscriber to my-alerts receives the notification immediately.

With title, priority, and tags

curl \
  -H "Title: Server Alert" \
  -H "Priority: high" \
  -H "Tags: warning,computer" \
  -d "Disk usage on prod-1 is at 95%" \
  ntfy.yourdomain.com/server-alerts

Priority levels

Priority	Value	Behavior
Min	1	No notification sound, no badge
Low	2	No notification sound
Default	3	Default notification
High	4	Loud notification, stays in tray
Urgent	5	Max volume, bypasses DND

Notification with action buttons

# Add a "View Logs" button that opens a URL:
curl \
  -H "Title: Deploy Failed" \
  -H "Priority: high" \
  -H "Actions: view, View Logs, https://logs.yourdomain.com/deploy-42" \
  -d "Production deployment #42 failed at build step" \
  ntfy.yourdomain.com/deployments

Notification with image attachment

# Send a screenshot or image with the notification:
curl \
  -H "Title: Security Camera Alert" \
  -H "Filename: camera-snapshot.jpg" \
  -T /tmp/snapshot.jpg \
  ntfy.yourdomain.com/cameras

---

Part 5: iOS and Android Apps

iOS

1. Install ntfy from App Store
2. Add subscription:
   • Server: https://ntfy.yourdomain.com
   • Topic: my-alerts
3. Enable notifications

For background push delivery on iOS, ntfy uses Apple Push Notifications (APNs). Self-hosted servers require proxying through ntfy.sh's Firebase relay unless you configure your own Firebase project.

Android

1. Install ntfy from F-Droid or Play Store
2. Add subscription:
   • Server: https://ntfy.yourdomain.com
   • Topic: my-alerts
3. Notifications work without Firebase (UnifiedPush)

Web

Subscribe in a browser:

const es = new EventSource("https://ntfy.yourdomain.com/my-alerts/sse");
es.onmessage = (e) => {
  const notification = JSON.parse(e.data);
  console.log(notification.message);
};

---

Part 6: Access Control

Create users

# Add a user with publish-only access to a specific topic:
docker exec ntfy ntfy user add --role=user alice
docker exec ntfy ntfy access alice server-alerts rw   # read+write
docker exec ntfy ntfy access alice public-feed ro      # read-only

# Add an admin user:
docker exec ntfy ntfy user add --role=admin admin

# List users:
docker exec ntfy ntfy user list

Sending with authentication

# Basic auth:
curl -u alice:password \
  -d "Authorized alert" \
  ntfy.yourdomain.com/server-alerts

# Or Bearer token:
curl \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer tk_yourtoken" \
  -d "Authorized alert" \
  ntfy.yourdomain.com/server-alerts

---

Part 7: Integrations

Home Assistant

# configuration.yaml:
notify:
  - name: ntfy
    platform: rest
    resource: "https://ntfy.yourdomain.com/home-assistant"
    method: POST_JSON
    headers:
      Authorization: "Bearer tk_yourtoken"
    message_param_name: message
    title_param_name: title
    data:
      priority: high

# Automation example:
automation:
  - alias: Notify on motion
    trigger:
      - platform: state
        entity_id: binary_sensor.front_door_motion
        to: "on"
    action:
      - service: notify.ntfy
        data:
          title: "Motion Detected"
          message: "Front door motion sensor triggered"

Uptime Kuma

1. Uptime Kuma → Notifications → Add → ntfy
2. ntfy Server URL: https://ntfy.yourdomain.com
3. Topic: uptime-alerts
4. Priority: High

Cron job alerts

#!/bin/bash
# Wrap any command to get notified on failure:

COMMAND="$@"
OUTPUT=$($COMMAND 2>&1)
EXIT_CODE=$?

if [ $EXIT_CODE -ne 0 ]; then
  curl \
    -H "Title: Cron Job Failed" \
    -H "Priority: high" \
    -H "Tags: x,computer" \
    -d "Command: $COMMAND
Exit code: $EXIT_CODE
Output: $(echo "$OUTPUT" | tail -20)" \
    ntfy.yourdomain.com/cron-alerts
fi

Grafana alerts

# In Grafana → Contact Points → New → Webhook
URL: https://ntfy.yourdomain.com/grafana-alerts
Method: POST
Headers:
  Authorization: Bearer tk_yourtoken
  Title: Grafana Alert
  Priority: high

Watchtower (Docker update notifications)

# docker-compose.yml:
services:
  watchtower:
    image: containrrr/watchtower
    environment:
      WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATION_URL: "ntfy://ntfy.yourdomain.com/watchtower?auth=Basic&password=tk_yourtoken"

---

Part 8: ntfy CLI

# Install ntfy CLI:
brew install ntfy  # macOS
# or download from: https://github.com/binwiederhier/ntfy/releases

# Subscribe and watch for notifications:
ntfy subscribe --from-config

# Subscribe to a topic and run a command on notification:
ntfy subscribe ntfy.yourdomain.com/my-alerts \
  'notify-send "$m" "$t"'   # Linux desktop notification

# Publish:
ntfy publish ntfy.yourdomain.com/my-alerts "Hello from CLI"

---

Maintenance

# Update:
docker compose pull
docker compose up -d

# Backup:
tar -czf ntfy-backup-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz \
  $(docker volume inspect ntfy_ntfy_data --format '{{.Mountpoint}}')

# Check cache size:
du -sh $(docker volume inspect ntfy_ntfy_cache --format '{{.Mountpoint}}')

# View logs:
docker compose logs -f ntfy

# Test from server:
curl -d "Server is healthy" ntfy.yourdomain.com/health-check

Why Self-Host ntfy?

The case for self-hosting ntfy comes down to three practical factors: data ownership, cost at scale, and operational control.

Data ownership is the fundamental argument. When you use a SaaS version of any tool, your data lives on someone else's infrastructure subject to their terms of service, their security practices, and their business continuity. If the vendor raises prices, gets acquired, changes API limits, or shuts down, you're left scrambling. Self-hosting ntfy means your data and configuration stay on infrastructure you control — whether that's a VPS, a bare metal server, or a home lab.

Cost at scale matters once you move beyond individual use. Most SaaS equivalents charge per user or per data volume. A self-hosted instance on a $10-20/month VPS typically costs less than per-user SaaS pricing for teams of five or more — and the cost doesn't scale linearly with usage. One well-configured server handles dozens of users for a flat monthly fee.

Operational control is the third factor. The Docker Compose configuration above exposes every setting that commercial equivalents often hide behind enterprise plans: custom networking, environment variables, storage backends, and authentication integrations. You decide when to update, how to configure backups, and what access controls to apply.

The honest tradeoff: you're responsible for updates, backups, and availability. For teams running any production workloads, this is familiar territory. For individuals, the learning curve is real but the tooling (Docker, Caddy, automated backups) is well-documented and widely supported.

Server Requirements and Sizing

Before deploying ntfy, assess your server capacity against expected workload.

Minimum viable setup: A 1 vCPU, 1GB RAM VPS with 20GB SSD is sufficient for personal use or small teams. Most consumer VPS providers — Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr — offer machines in this range for $5-10/month. Hetzner offers excellent price-to-performance for European and US regions.

Recommended production setup: 2 vCPUs with 4GB RAM and 40GB SSD handles most medium deployments without resource contention. This gives ntfy headroom for background tasks, caching, and concurrent users while leaving capacity for other services on the same host.

Storage planning: The Docker volumes in this docker-compose.yml store all persistent ntfy data. Estimate your storage growth rate early — for data-intensive tools, budget for 3-5x your initial estimate. Hetzner Cloud and Vultr both support online volume resizing without stopping your instance.

Operating system: Any modern 64-bit Linux distribution works. Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and Debian 12 are the most commonly tested configurations. Ensure Docker Engine 24.0+ and Docker Compose v2 are installed — verify with docker --version and docker compose version. Avoid Docker Desktop on production Linux servers; it adds virtualization overhead and behaves differently from Docker Engine in ways that cause subtle networking issues.

Network: Only ports 80 and 443 need to be publicly accessible when running behind a reverse proxy. Internal service ports should be bound to localhost only. A minimal UFW firewall that blocks all inbound traffic except SSH, HTTP, and HTTPS is the single most effective security measure for a self-hosted server.

Backup and Disaster Recovery

Running ntfy without a tested backup strategy is an unacceptable availability risk. Docker volumes are not automatically backed up — if you delete a volume or the host fails, data is gone with no recovery path.

What to back up: The named Docker volumes containing ntfy's data (database files, user uploads, application state), your docker-compose.yml and any customized configuration files, and .env files containing secrets.

Backup approach: For simple setups, stop the container, archive the volume contents, then restart. For production environments where stopping causes disruption, use filesystem snapshots or database dump commands (PostgreSQL pg_dump, SQLite .backup, MySQL mysqldump) that produce consistent backups without downtime.

For a complete automated backup workflow that ships snapshots to S3-compatible object storage, see the Restic + Rclone backup guide. Restic handles deduplication and encryption; Rclone handles multi-destination uploads. The same setup works for any Docker volume.

Backup cadence: Daily backups to remote storage are a reasonable baseline for actively used tools. Use a 30-day retention window minimum — long enough to recover from mistakes discovered weeks later. For critical data, extend to 90 days and use a secondary destination.

Restore testing: A backup that has never been restored is a backup you cannot trust. Once a month, restore your ntfy backup to a separate Docker Compose stack on different ports and verify the data is intact. This catches silent backup failures, script errors, and volume permission issues before they matter in a real recovery.

Security Hardening

Self-hosting means you are responsible for ntfy's security posture. The Docker Compose setup provides a functional base; production deployments need additional hardening.

Always use a reverse proxy: Never expose ntfy's internal port directly to the internet. The docker-compose.yml binds to localhost; Caddy or Nginx provides HTTPS termination. Direct HTTP access transmits credentials in plaintext. A reverse proxy also centralizes TLS management, rate limiting, and access logging.

Strong credentials: Change default passwords immediately after first login. For secrets in docker-compose environment variables, generate random values with openssl rand -base64 32 rather than reusing existing passwords.

Firewall configuration:

ufw default deny incoming
ufw allow 22/tcp
ufw allow 80/tcp
ufw allow 443/tcp
ufw enable

Internal service ports (databases, admin panels, internal APIs) should only be reachable from localhost or the Docker network, never directly from the internet.

Network isolation: Docker Compose named networks keep ntfy's services isolated from other containers on the same host. Database containers should not share networks with containers that don't need direct database access.

VPN access for sensitive services: For internal-only tools, restricting access to a VPN adds a strong second layer. Headscale is an open source Tailscale control server that puts your self-hosted stack behind a WireGuard mesh, eliminating public internet exposure for internal tools.

Update discipline: Subscribe to ntfy's GitHub releases page to receive security advisory notifications. Schedule a monthly maintenance window to pull updated images. Running outdated container images is the most common cause of self-hosted service compromises.

Troubleshooting Common Issues

Container exits immediately or won't start

Check logs first — they almost always explain the failure:

docker compose logs -f ntfy

Common causes: a missing required environment variable, a port already in use, or a volume permission error. Port conflicts appear as bind: address already in use. Find the conflicting process with ss -tlpn | grep PORT and either stop it or change ntfy's port mapping in docker-compose.yml.

Cannot reach the web interface

Work through this checklist:

1. Confirm the container is running: docker compose ps
2. Test locally on the server: curl -I http://localhost:PORT
3. If local access works but external doesn't, check your firewall: ufw status
4. If using a reverse proxy, verify it's running and the config is valid: caddy validate --config /etc/caddy/Caddyfile

Permission errors on volume mounts

Some containers run as a non-root user. If the Docker volume is owned by root, the container process cannot write to it. Find the volume's host path with docker volume inspect VOLUME_NAME, check the tool's documentation for its expected UID, and apply correct ownership:

chown -R 1000:1000 /var/lib/docker/volumes/your_volume/_data

High resource usage over time

Memory or CPU growing continuously usually indicates unconfigured log rotation, an unbound cache, or accumulated data needing pruning. Check current usage with docker stats ntfy. Add resource limits in docker-compose.yml to prevent one container from starving others. For ongoing visibility into resource trends, deploy Prometheus + Grafana or Netdata.

Data disappears after container restart

Data stored in the container's writable layer — rather than a named volume — is lost when the container is removed or recreated. This happens when the volume mount path in docker-compose.yml doesn't match where the application writes data. Verify mount paths against the tool's documentation and correct the mapping. Named volumes persist across container removal; only docker compose down -v deletes them.

Keeping ntfy Updated

ntfy follows a regular release cadence. Staying current matters for security patches and compatibility. The update process with Docker Compose is straightforward:

docker compose pull          # Download updated images
docker compose up -d         # Restart with new images
docker image prune -f        # Remove old image layers (optional)

Read the changelog before major version updates. Some releases include database migrations or breaking configuration changes. For major version bumps, test in a staging environment first — run a copy of the service on different ports with the same volume data to validate the migration before touching production.

Version pinning: For stability, pin to a specific image tag in docker-compose.yml instead of latest. Update deliberately after reviewing the changelog. This trades automatic patch delivery for predictable behavior — the right call for business-critical services.

Post-update verification: After updating, confirm ntfy is functioning correctly. Most services expose a /health endpoint that returns HTTP 200 — curl it from the server or monitor it with your uptime tool.

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See also: Gotify — alternative push notification service with persistent message history

See all open source productivity tools at OSSAlt.com/categories/productivity.