Open Source Pushbullet Alternatives
A curated collection of the 2 best open source alternatives to Pushbullet.
The best open source alternative to Pushbullet is LocalSend. If that doesn't suit you, we've compiled a ranked list of other open source Pushbullet alternatives to help you find a suitable replacement. Other interesting open source alternative to Pushbullet is Ntfy.
Pushbullet alternatives are mainly File Management & Sync but may also be Email & Communication or Messaging & Event Streaming. Browse these if you want a narrower list of alternatives or looking for a specific functionality of Pushbullet.
Cross-platform app for sending files and messages to nearby devices over your local network, with no internet and no third-party server.
LocalSend shares files and messages with nearby devices over the local network. Nothing leaves the network you are on: no internet connection is required and no external server sees the transfer, which is the difference from the messaging apps people usually fall back on.
Devices talk to each other through a REST API, and every transfer is encrypted with a TLS certificate generated on the fly on each device. The protocol is documented in its own repository, and the app itself is built with Flutter and Rust.
Getting it working is mostly a matter of installing it and letting the traffic through.
- Every platform: Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS and Fire OS builds are published.
- Package managers: Winget, Scoop, Chocolatey, Homebrew, Flathub, Snap, Nixpkgs, the AUR, F-Droid and the app stores.
- Firewall: allow incoming TCP and UDP on port 53317, and disable AP isolation on the router.
- Portable mode: an empty settings.json beside the executable keeps configuration with the app.
- Start hidden: a hidden flag launches the app into the tray only.
Minimum versions are Android 5.0, iOS 12, macOS 11 and Windows 10, with Linux needing the xdg desktop portal packages for your desktop. The app has no auto-update, so installing from a store or a package manager is the recommended route. Building from source needs Flutter and Rust.
A self-hostable pub-sub notification service that sends alerts to your phone or desktop from any script using plain HTTP requests.
ntfy, pronounced notify, is a simple HTTP-based publish-subscribe notification service. It removes the ceremony around alerting, since there is no account to create and no fee to pay, and a cron job or a backup script can push a message to your phone with a single PUT or POST.
The server is written in Go and keeps a persistent message cache in SQLite, so subscribers that were offline still receive what they missed. Delivery reaches Android and iOS through Firebase Cloud Messaging, browsers through web push, and the bundled React web app through a live subscription. Messages can also arrive by email through a built-in SMTP listener.
The pieces that matter in daily use are these.
- Script friendly publishing: any tool that speaks HTTP can send a notification, curl included.
- Topics instead of accounts: subscribers pick a topic name and start receiving, with no registration step.
- Official mobile apps: the Android and iOS clients are open source and published on Google Play, F-Droid and the App Store.
- Message templating: Go text templates with Sprig functions shape incoming payloads into readable alerts.
- Tags and sounds: notifications carry emoji tags and notification sounds, so alerts stay distinguishable at a glance.
A free public instance is run by the maintainer, with paid plans for people who would rather not self-host and want to support development. The whole server is dual licensed under Apache 2.0 and GPLv2, ships as a single Go binary, and comes with its own command line client for publishing and subscribing.
