ntfy
Free push notifications to your phone or desktop — no account, no bot, just a topic name.
ntfy (pronounced notify) is a free, open-source push service loved by developers and self-hosters: you subscribe to a topic (just a name you invent) in the ntfy app, and anything published to that topic pops up on your phone instantly. No account, no API keys, no bot setup.
WatchFor publishes alerts straight to your topic — severity-mapped priorities (critical = max, so it can override Do-Not-Disturb if you allow it), status emoji, and a tap-to-open link to the incident.
Setup
Install the ntfy app
Get ntfy from the App Store / Google Play, or use the web app at ntfy.sh. No registration needed.
Subscribe to a topic
In the app, press + Subscribe to topic and invent a name — for example
acme-alerts-x7k2q.
The topic name is the only secret: anyone who knows it can read your
alerts (and publish to it). Use something long and random, not
my-alerts.
Add the channel in WatchFor
Go to Alerting → Channels → Add channel → ntfy, enter the same topic name, and save. Leave Server URL empty to use ntfy.sh.
Send a test
Press Send test — a push notification should reach your phone within a couple of seconds.
Self-hosted ntfy
Running your own ntfy server? Set Server URL to it (e.g.
https://push.example.com). If your server or topic requires authentication,
paste an Access Token — it's stored encrypted and sent as a Bearer token.
How alerts behave
| Incident | Priority | Effect in the app |
|---|---|---|
| Critical firing | Max (5) | Repeated/insistent notification — can be configured to bypass Do Not Disturb |
| Warning firing | High (4) | Prominent notification |
| Resolved | Default (3) | Normal notification with a ✅ |
Tapping a notification opens the incident in WatchFor.
Troubleshooting
- Test doesn't arrive — check the topic spelling matches exactly (topics are case-sensitive) and that the app is subscribed to it on the same server.
- Arrives on web but not on the phone — check the app's battery/network permissions; ntfy's docs cover per-vendor battery-optimization quirks.
- Alerts stop after switching servers — the topic lives per server;
subscribing to
acme-x7on ntfy.sh is not the same as on your own server.