# Architecture Decision Record: Monitoring Notifications

Initial Author: Taha Hawa

Initial Date: 2025-06-26

Last Updated Date: 2025-06-26

## Status

Proposed

## Context

We need to send notifications (typically from AlertManager/Prometheus) and we need to receive said notifications on mobile devices for sure in some way, whether it's push messages, SMS, phone call, email, etc or all of the above.

## Decision

We should go with https://ntfy.sh except host it ourselves.

`ntfy` is an open source solution written in Go that has the features we need.

## Rationale

`ntfy` has pretty much everything we need (push notifications, email forwarding, receives via webhook), and nothing/not much we don't. Good fit, lightweight.

## Consequences

Pros:

- topics, with ACLs
- lightweight
- reliable
- easy to configure
- mobile app
  - the mobile app can listen via websocket, poll, or receive via Firebase/GCM on Android, or similar on iOS.
- Forward to email
- Text-to-Speech phone call messages using Twilio integration
- Operates based on simple HTTP requests/Webhooks, easily usable via AlertManager

Cons:

- No SMS pushes
- SQLite DB, makes it harder to HA/scale

## Alternatives considered

[AWS SNS](https://aws.amazon.com/sns/):
Pros:

- highly reliable
- no hosting needed

Cons:

- no control, not self hosted
- costs (per usage)

[Apprise](https://github.com/caronc/apprise):
Pros:

- Way more ways of sending notifications
- Can use ntfy as one of the backends/ways of sending

Cons:

- Way too overkill for what we need in terms of features

[Gotify](https://github.com/gotify/server):
Pros:

- simple, lightweight, golang, etc

Cons:

- Pushes topics are per-user

## Additional Notes