# Courier vs ntfy

> Courier has a score of 70.5 (BB) against ntfy's 61.6 (C). Both do notify push. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 31 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/courier-vs-ntfy
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/courier-vs-ntfy.md (~1,300 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/courier-vs-ntfy.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/courier-vs-ntfy.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-04

Courier has a score of 70.5 (BB) against ntfy's 61.6 (C). Both do notify push. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 31 points.

- Courier: grade BB, 70.5/100, rank #96 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/courier.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/courier.json
- ntfy: grade C, 61.6/100, rank #226 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/ntfy.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/ntfy.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Courier for reliability (+9), schema & documentation (+31), security & auth (+18), maintenance & community (+19).

Pick ntfy for payments & pricing (+15), transparency & trust (+14).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Courier | ntfy | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 92 | 83 | Courier +9 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 84 | 53 | Courier +31 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 68 | 66 | Courier +2 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 56 | 38 | Courier +18 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 35 | 50 | ntfy +15 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 86 | 67 | Courier +19 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 65 | 79 | ntfy +14 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **70.5 · BB** | **61.6 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Courier | ntfy |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Courier | ntfy |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.courier.com` | `https://ntfy.sh` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (Node SDK) | Apache-2.0 and GPL-2.0 (dual) |
| Tools exposed | 170 | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | `io.github.trycourier/courier` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-24 | 2026-08-27 |
| Popularity | 63 stars, 189k npm/wk, 35k PyPI/wk | 34k stars |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 4/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Courier.** Free for 10,000 sends a month, then $0.005 a send with no platform fee. 170 MCP tools with no toolsets, filtering or read-only mode.

**ntfy.** Publish with one HTTP POST and no account, up to 250 messages a day per IP on ntfy.sh. Unreserved topics on ntfy.sh can be read and written by anyone who knows the name.

## Before you call either

### Courier

1. Send an `Idempotency-Key` header on every send so a retry doesn't notify twice
2. Set `routing.method` to `single` to stop at the first channel that works
3. Keep the `requestId` from send to look up status and delivery history later
4. Use a dedicated API key for the MCP server. Every one of the 170 tools runs with that key's full rights
5. Space resends at least 2 seconds apart per message or you get a 429

### ntfy

1. Use a long random topic name, or a reserved topic with a Bearer token
2. Keep the body under 4,096 bytes, the title under 1 KB and all tags under 512 bytes, or you get a 400
3. Don't blind-retry a publish. There's no idempotency key, so the person gets it twice
4. Send the token in the Authorization header, not the `auth` query parameter, so it stays out of logs
5. Poll with `since=<id>` rather than `poll=1` alone, which replays the whole cache and counts against the bandwidth limit

## Other comparisons with Courier or ntfy

- [Courier vs Knock](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/courier-vs-knock.md)
- [Courier vs Novu](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/courier-vs-novu.md)
- [Courier vs OneSignal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/courier-vs-onesignal.md)
- [Courier vs Pushover](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/courier-vs-pushover.md)
- [Courier vs SuprSend](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/courier-vs-suprsend.md)
- [Knock vs ntfy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/knock-vs-ntfy.md)
- [Novu vs ntfy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/novu-vs-ntfy.md)
- [ntfy vs OneSignal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ntfy-vs-onesignal.md)
- [ntfy vs Pushover](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ntfy-vs-pushover.md)
- [ntfy vs SuprSend](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ntfy-vs-suprsend.md)