Updated August 2026
    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    17k

    Apprise: Maintenance, Licence and Alternatives

    Apprise allows you to send a notification to almost all of the most popular notification services available to us today such as: Telegram, Discord, Slack, Amazon SNS, Gotify, etc.

    TL;DR • Apprise • as of August 2026

    Apprise is an open-source communication project positioned as an alternative to Notification infrastructure, Push notifications, with 17k GitHub stars and a health score of 80/100. It committed 200 times in the last twelve months across 12 of those months, and its status is actively maintained. Licence: MIT. It has real momentum, so treat it as a live competitor rather than a stale repository.

    17k
    GitHub stars
    80/100
    Health score
    200
    Commits (12 mo)
    12/12
    Active months

    Maintenance health

    Status Actively maintained — Committed within the last 45 days.
    Last commit 2026-08-11
    Days since last commit 6
    Commits, last 3 months 49
    Commits, last 12 months 200
    Months with activity 12 of 12
    Last release 2026-07-04
    Archived No
    Licence MIT
    Category Communication
    Positioned against Notification infrastructure, Push notifications

    Health score combines commit recency, twelve-month commit volume, months with activity, release recency and archive state. Metadata refreshed August 2026.

    What the licence lets you do

    MIT

    Permissive (MIT, Apache, BSD): you can fork it, close the source and sell it. Lowest legal friction for a commercial product.

    This matters most when you plan to sell a hosted version. A permissive licence means anyone — including a competitor with more capital — can do the same, so your defensibility has to come from distribution, support or data, not from the code.

    What Apprise means for your idea

    Crowded · 77/100
    Communication category →

    Apprise is shipping code consistently, so a buyer comparing your product will find a maintained free option. Price and position against the total cost of self-hosting it, not against the paid incumbent's list price.

    Assume every prospect can find a free version in five minutes. Your wedge has to be something open source structurally cannot deliver: compliance, support SLAs, managed hosting at scale, or a workflow the maintainers refuse to build.

    Apprise: common questions

    Is Apprise still maintained in 2026?

    Actively maintained. Apprise recorded 200 commits over the last twelve months, with activity in 12 of those months and 49 commits in the last quarter. Last commit: 2026-08-11. Last release: 2026-07-04. Committed within the last 45 days.

    Can I use Apprise commercially?

    Apprise is published under MIT. Permissive (MIT, Apache, BSD): you can fork it, close the source and sell it. Lowest legal friction for a commercial product.

    Is Apprise a good Notification infrastructure, Push notifications alternative?

    Apprise targets the same job as Notification infrastructure, Push notifications and is actively shipping. Adoption sits at 17k stars. Whether it is a good replacement depends on your deployment constraints: self-hosting adds infrastructure, upgrade and security work that a commercial subscription absorbs for you.

    How crowded is the Communication category?

    177 open-source implementations, 100 of them actively maintained, led by Mastodon at 50k stars. Saturation score 77/100 — Crowded. Free, maintained alternatives already dominate this category.

    Apprise alternatives in Communication

    Mastodon

    Alternative to Social network/ Micro-blogging

    50k

    Federated microblogging server.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    AGPL-3.0

    Discourse

    Alternative to Tribe, Circle, Community management

    48k

    Advanced forum / community solution based on Ruby and JS.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    GPL-2.0

    Rocket.Chat

    Alternative to Slack, Team communication, Chat & Team Communication

    46k

    Communications platform that puts data protection first (alternative to Gitter.im and Slack).

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Novu

    Alternative to Courier, MagicBell, Knock, Notification infrastructure, Push notifications

    40k

    Notification infrastructure for developers.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Mattermost

    Communication

    39k

    Platform for secure collaboration across the entire software development lifecycle, can be integrated with Gitlab (alternative to Slack).

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    ⊘ Proprietary

    Chatwoot

    Alternative to Intercom, Zendesk, Live chat

    36k

    Customer communication platform (alternative to Intercom and Zendesk).

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    ⊘ Proprietary

    Competing with free? Check the market first.

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