NotificationAPI
vs.
Novu
Detailed comparison with screenshots (2024)
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Summary
While similar on the surface, the two teams operate on widely different philosophies and are good fits for different types of organizations:
NotificationAPI
Philosophy:
Saving Time, Simplifying Architecture
Dedicated support even in the free tier
Comprehensive template editors
Does not require any 3rd-parties
Fully integrated notification system
No complex workflow builder
Minimal open source community
Better for:
NotificationAPI is for small to medium size B2B SaaS companies that want to move fast with their notification project and expect a reliable customer support experience.
Novu
Philosophy:
Flexibility, OSS
Free open-core, commercial self-hosted, or cloud option
Strong open source community
A complex workflow builder
Requires an email service, push service, etc.
No visual template editors (raw html)
Weak customer support even with paid versions
Better for:
Novu is for teams that are looking for an open-source and always free notification service; or enterprises that have the time and resources to deploy and maintain Novu in collaboration with an active open source community.
Pricing
NotificationAPI offers the same price per notification as Novu at $0.001 however, we include 3rd-party notifications in our costs. Novu also offers an open-core version of their software with limited functionality.
NotificationAPI
Starting at $0.001 per notification
Includes email service costs
Indefinite notification retention and long log retention
Free tier, but no open source
Novu
Starting at $0.001 per notification
Pay for your own email service
Aggressive limits on notification retention, logs retention and API rates
Open source (self hosted) version with less features
Major Capability Differences
Automations & Workflows
NotificationAPI focuses on simplicity and ease of use, while Novu focuses on flexibility.
NotificationAPI
Batching, digest, scheduling, deduplication, throttling
User Preferences, time-zone aware delivery of digests
No custom workflow builder, delays or conditionals
Novu
Batching, digest, scheduling, idempotent protection
User Preferences
Comprehensive workflow builder that supports delays and some conditions, e.g. send email if in-app is not seen
Logs
NotificationAPI offers better log search-ability and longer retention periods.
NotificationAPI
Filtering notifications based on date, user, status, notification type, delivery channel, and custom queries
Logs query API and dashboard
Preview of delivered notifications
60 day retention in free tier
Novu
Filtering notifications based on user and notification type
30 day retenion in paid plans
Email Notifications & Editors
Novu acts as a router between you and your own email service. NotificationAPI is an email service and exposes more email related capabilities.
NotificationAPI
Powerful visual email editor (WYSIWYG)
Does not require a 3rd-party
Novu
Raw HTML email editor
Must configure, pay, and integrate for your own email 3rd-party, e.g. SendGrid
Other Notable Differences
NotificationAPI
Also supports SMS, Mobile Push, Web Push, and Automated Calls without any 3rd-parties
Requires loop to send to multiple users
No dashboard to view end-users
Comprehensive WYSIWYG editors for all channels
Novu
Supports Discord, Slack, MS Teams
Supports SMS, Mobile Push and Web Push through 3rd-parties
Sending to multiple users without loops
Has dashboard to view and search all end-users
Barebones editors
Reliability
NotificationAPI offers better professional support while Novu is backed by a strong open source community.
NotificationAPI
Chat, Email, Slack, Discord, Video Call
~1 hour response time during business hours (EST)
Uptime: 99.9%
Minimal open source community (SDKs)
Separate regions: US, Canada (EU by request)
Novu
Chat (free), Email (paid)
~2 day response time
Uptime: 99.9%
Strong open source community (core)
Separate regions: US, EU
Closing thoughts by
NotificationAPI's CEO
Kudos to the Novu team for moving the world forward with their open source work! 👏
Their notification workflow builder and OSS community are major forces behind Novu. We don't wish enter OSS, because our customers (SMB SaaS teams) don't want to waste time deploying and maintaining complex infrastructure.
However, we do wish to compete with their notification workflow builder in Q2 of 2024! Looking forward to seeing more green checks on this page soon. 🚀
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