A Developer’s Guide to Choosing the Best Notification Platform
A comprehensive guide for developers on selecting notification platforms, covering different types of notifications (push, in-app, email, SMS, and chat), key features to consider, popular providers, and best practices for implementation. Learn how to evaluate notification platforms based on integration ease, cost-effectiveness, scalability, and security, with practical insights on platforms like FCM, Twilio, SendGrid, and Novu.

Duolingo is well known for its unique usage of rich notifications, which, according to co-founder Luis von Ahn, are “one of the core drivers of Duolingo’s impressive daily user traffic.” This highlights how essential notifications are in keeping customers updated and connected to apps and products. However, designing an efficient notification system is not without its challenges.
“How to build a notification system?” is a common question on platforms like StackOverflow, Quora, and Reddit. The complexity of this process has led developers to seek notification platforms that simplify how notifications are integrated into apps so they don’t have to build from scratch. As such, this guide will provide developers with the necessary knowledge and considerations when choosing a notification platform. Let’s get started.
What are notifications?
Notifications are messages or alerts designed to inform or remind users about specific events or important updates related to an application or service. Different types of notifications are used in digital products, each serving distinct purposes. Some of the main types of notifications include web push notifications, in-app, email, and SMS notifications. Each of these will be explored in detail below:
Push notification
Push notifications are short, clickable messages sent directly to users’ devices from an application, even when they are not actively using it. They are typically popular, with Business of Apps reporting an overall opt-in rate of 60%. Some use cases of push notifications include usage by online retailers and E-commerce apps to alert loyal customers about sales and promotions or on social media platforms to notify users of new messages, likes, or comments.

Push notification of sales from Amazon.
In-app notifications
In-app notifications appear within the application while users are actively using it. They’re designed to improve the user experience or guide the user to a specific app action without interrupting their flow.

With a 75% open rate, in-app notifications perform better than push notifications. Some common forms of in-app notifications include onboarding tips in the form of modals, tooltips, banners, etc.
Email notifications
Email notifications are usually sent to a user’s email address. They are often more formal and provide more detailed information than other notification types.

Email notifications are especially beneficial for reaching users who may not actively use the app, service, or website but still want to stay informed. Examples of these include newsletters or order confirmations for customers.
SMS notifications
SMS notifications or SMS messages are text messages sent to a user’s mobile phone. They are mobile messaging typically used for urgent or time-sensitive alerts and provide a direct and reliable way to send messages that reach users regardless of their device or internet connection. Due to SMS’s non-reliance on internet connectivity, they are best suited for almost every user base. Use cases for this include sending verification codes, service alerts, etc.

Chat notifications
Chat notifications provide a direct, real-time way of communicating with users through popular messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, Discord, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Telegram. These notifications allow businesses and communities to reach users in the spaces where they’re already active, making communication seamless and engaging.
Examples:
WhatsApp: Ideal for transactional messages, appointment reminders, and customer service, WhatsApp notifications allow businesses to maintain a personal touch and reach users directly on their mobile devices.
Discord: Popular among gaming communities and tech-focused organizations, Discord notifications are perfect for community updates, event reminders, or server alerts.
Slack: Frequently used by businesses for team communication, Slack notifications keep teams informed on project updates, system alerts, and urgent messages.
Microsoft Teams: A preferred choice for corporate environments, Microsoft Teams notifications are excellent for meeting reminders, project updates, and real-time collaboration, seamlessly integrating with Office 365.
Telegram: Known for its high level of privacy and user control, Telegram notifications can be sent directly to individuals or groups, and it supports notifications from custom bots. These bots can send automated updates, alerts, or other messages, allowing organizations to engage large audiences efficiently and provide real-time information.
Each platform supports unique integrations, allowing notifications to be customized to the audience’s specific needs and preferences.
Next, we’ll explore notification platforms and how they work with the different types of notifications.
What are notification platforms?
Notification platforms are systems or services that enable implementing, creating, sending, and managing notifications. In simple terms, notification platforms are communication channels that facilitate the journey of the notification from creation to execution between the system (developer, business, application) and the receiver (user).
Here’s a typical notification flow facilitated by a service.

Notification platform showing integration with other services and notification delivery to users
Later, we will discuss some popular notification platforms, but first, let’s look at some critical features of notification platforms.
Key features of notification platforms
Notification platforms are equipped with features that improve the experience of the end user and the platform user, which can be the Developer, Business Manager, Analyst, etc.
Some of these key features include:
- Customization and personalization
- Real-time analytics and reporting
- Scalability and reliability
- Multi-channel delivery
- Integration and compatibility
We’ll look at each and why they matter.
Customization and personalization
Notification platforms often offer robust configuration and sometimes white labeling options that enable businesses to customize, personalize, and notify target users based on brand voice, user preference, demographics, etc.

Customization and segmentation feature on a notification platform
This customization capability makes notification platforms versatile as they can be built once and reimagined per business to suit different use cases.
Real-time analytics and reporting
Robust real-time analytics are a crucial feature of notification platforms as they provide insights into notification performance by tracking key metrics like delivery rates, open rates, click-through rates, and user behavior.
This is particularly useful in A/B testing to experiment with different message formats to identify the most effective approach.
Scalability and reliability
Notification platforms are designed to scale effortlessly, allowing companies to handle large volumes of notifications without compromising performance.
This scalability ensures that businesses maintain effective communication as their user base increases while their notification implementation ideally remains the same.
Multi-channel delivery
As explored earlier, notifications can be of various types, and versatility is one of the core features every notification platform introduces into the build. This versatility is in multi-channel delivery, where multiple communication channels like push notifications, email, and SMS are supported. This ensures businesses can choose the different modes of message delivery as needed.

Integration and compatibility
Notification platforms easily connect with existing systems, applications, and third-party services through APIs and SDKs. This ensures flexibility in using the notification service or platform, including incorporation into existing workflows and systems.
These are all great features and characteristics; however, how do notification platforms benefit the business?
Benefits of using a notification platform
Here are ways notification platforms play a vital role for businesses and developers seeking to enhance user engagement and communication experience:
Improved user engagement: Notifications, among other functions, remind customers to interact and engage with a product. Through multi-channel delivery, users can receive notifications in a convenient format. This, combined with high relevance and customization, helps the business target, engage, and communicate with each user on a more personal level, leading to higher engagement.
Enhanced customer experience: Users turn off notifications or, in extreme cases, delete applications for various reasons, primarily when notifications are sent at inconvenient times or too frequently, leading to notification fatigue and frustration.However, notification platforms provide valuable analytics on user engagement, such as the optimal time of day to send notifications and the most effective formats for different user segments. Marketing, Product, and Developers can leverage these insights to deliver value and drive engagement by ensuring timely, relevant, and well-paced notifications.
Increased operational efficiency: Notification workflows streamline repetitive communication tasks by automating them end-to-end, significantly reducing the need for manual intervention. Through seamless integration with business systems like customer relationship management (CRM) or marketing automation tools, workflows ensure that critical notifications are triggered automatically at precisely the right time.For instance, when a new customer is added to the CRM, a notification workflow can automatically initiate a sequence of messages, such as a welcome email followed by onboarding tips, without requiring additional input from the sales or marketing team. This automated workflow not only reduces the workload on customer service teams but also ensures consistency, minimizes human error, and creates a smooth, responsive user experience.
Subscriber (recipient) management: Notification platforms simplify managing large numbers of subscribers by organizing them into specific segments, enabling precise targeting and personalization. Businesses can easily manage subscriber lists, track engagement, and customize notifications to ensure messages are relevant to each user segment, enhancing user satisfaction and engagement.
Multi-tenancy support: Multi-tenancy allows businesses to separate and manage notifications across various clients or brands within a single system, ensuring data privacy and control. This feature enables each tenant to maintain unique subscriber preferences and communication styles, making it easier to provide tailored messaging and achieve the specific goals of each organization while operating under one unified platform.
Better conversion rates: Many notification platforms offer A/B testing features, allowing businesses to experiment with different messaging strategies, formats, and timings. For example, companies can A/B test different subject lines for an email campaign to reveal which version leads to higher open and click-through rates, directly contributing to better retention rates and conversion outcomes.
No-Code tools to manage notifications: With a no-code user interface (no-code editors), teams can adjust notification messaging, verbiage, and cadence without needing engineering support. This empowers marketing, product, and support teams to fine-tune notifications in real-time, ensuring messages are aligned with current campaigns, user feedback, and evolving engagement strategies, all without disrupting development workflows.
Improved timing with scheduling and delay functionality: Notification platforms enable businesses to schedule messages or introduce a delay, ensuring they reach users at the most effective times. For example, a platform can queue up messages to reach a global audience during their respective peak engagement times or delay notifications based on users’ time zones and habits. This minimizes disruption and allows users to receive updates when they’re most likely to engage, reducing notification fatigue and increasing relevance.
Better user experience with digest functionality: Digest notifications consolidate multiple updates into a single message, preventing users from feeling overwhelmed by individual alerts. By grouping updates, notification digests enhance user experience and maintain a clean inbox while still keeping users informed. This functionality also benefits companies by keeping users more engaged over time, as they are less likely to opt out of receiving notifications.
Personalized communication through user preferences: Offering users the ability to set their notification preferences