# Courier vs OneSignal

> Courier has a score of 70.5 (BB) against OneSignal's 69.6 (B). Both do notify push. The largest gap is reliability, 22 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/courier-vs-onesignal
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/courier-vs-onesignal.md (~1,300 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/courier-vs-onesignal.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/courier-vs-onesignal.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: 2026-10-05

Courier has a score of 70.5 (BB) against OneSignal's 69.6 (B). Both do notify push. The largest gap is reliability, 22 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
- OneSignal: grade B, 69.6/100, rank #110 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/onesignal.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/onesignal.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Courier for reliability (+22), maintenance & community (+5).

Pick OneSignal for security & auth (+18), transparency & trust (+11).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Courier | OneSignal | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 92 | 70 | Courier +22 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 84 | 87 | OneSignal +3 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 68 | 64 | Courier +4 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 56 | 74 | OneSignal +18 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 35 | 35 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 86 | 81 | Courier +5 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 65 | 76 | OneSignal +11 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **70.5 · BB** | **69.6 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Courier | OneSignal |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Courier | OneSignal |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.courier.com` | `https://api.onesignal.com` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (Node SDK) | Modified MIT (Node SDK, use limited to OneSignal's services) |
| Tools exposed | 170 | 43 |
| 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 | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.github.trycourier/courier` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-24 | 2026-09-30 |
| Popularity | 63 stars, 189k npm/wk, 35k PyPI/wk | 52 stars, 231k npm/wk, 28k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 3.5/5 (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.

**OneSignal.** Runs push delivery itself, so there's no separate push provider to wire up. Three incidents on the API and SDK endpoints in September 2026.

## 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

### OneSignal

1. Use `Authorization: Key <key>`, not Bearer, and put `app_id` in the body
2. Send an `idempotency_key` UUID with every create call and reuse it on each retry
3. On 429, wait for `Retry-After`, then back off with jitter, up to 10 attempts
4. Stay under 10 sends per subscribed subscription in 15 minutes or the app is disabled
5. Target people with `include_aliases.external_id` and set `target_channel`

## Other comparisons with Courier or OneSignal

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