What is Apprise used for?

Apprise is a Python library and command-line tool that sends notifications to many services through one consistent URL syntax. It is a good fit for sending alerts from scripts and cron jobs, and adding multi-service notifications to an app.

Is Apprise open source?

Yes. Apprise is open source under the BSD-2-Clause licence. Its source code is on GitHub at caronc/apprise and is written mainly in Python.

Yes. Apprise is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

What is Apprise an alternative to?

Apprise is an open-source alternative to Courier and Knock. Other open-source alternatives to Courier include Novu.

Is Apprise actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Apprise was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v2.0.0, published on 26 September 2026. The project has 18k stars on GitHub.

Apprise: open-source alternative to Courier, Knock

About Apprise

Apprise is a notification library and command-line tool that sends messages to a large number of services, including Telegram, Discord, Slack, Amazon SNS and Gotify, through one common syntax. Developers add the library once instead of researching and integrating each notification service separately.

A consistent URL format identifies each destination, and the same approach works from the CLI, from the Python library or through the Apprise API relay. It handles images and attachments for services that accept them, loads configuration files, supports custom notifications and hooks, and sends messages asynchronously for quick response times. Notification categories include productivity, SMS, desktop, email and custom services.

System administrators and DevOps engineers can use the bundled command line tool to send alerts from scripts and infrastructure without finding the right tool for each service. Apprise is written in Python, licensed under BSD-2-Clause, and distributed as a library and as a Docker image.

Key features

One URL syntax for many notification services
Command-line tool for scripts and alerts
Python library for developers
Image and file attachment support
Asynchronous message sending
Apprise API relay option

Good fit for

→Sending alerts from scripts and cron jobs
→Adding multi-service notifications to an app

Built with: Python
Tags: notifications; alerts; push-notifications; python; cli; devops; library; automation

Apprise: questions and answers

What is Apprise used for?: Apprise is a Python library and command-line tool that sends notifications to many services through one consistent URL syntax. It is a good fit for sending alerts from scripts and cron jobs, and adding multi-service notifications to an app.
Is Apprise open source?: Yes. Apprise is open source under the BSD-2-Clause licence. Its source code is on GitHub at caronc/apprise and is written mainly in Python.
Is Apprise free?: Yes. Apprise is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
What is Apprise an alternative to?: Apprise is an open-source alternative to Courier and Knock. Other open-source alternatives to Courier include Novu.
Is Apprise actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Apprise was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v2.0.0, published on 26 September 2026. The project has 18k stars on GitHub.