The top 8 push notification providers in 2026

Push notification providers facilitate the delivery and management of real-time alerts to notify users on their devices or from their browser.

We evaluated the top push notification providers based on their features, pros, cons, and pricing, and below, you'll find an in-depth look at each to help you determine which provider to use for your push notifications.

The short answer. Choose APNs and/or FCM if you only need free, low-level delivery and are happy to manage push content, preferences, and delivery logic in a separate platform. Choose Knock if you want all that built in and need to manage push notifications alongside other messaging channels like email, in-app, SMS, or Slack. Choose OneSignal if you mainly send marketing push campaigns and prefer pricing based on monthly active users instead of messages sent. Choose Expo if you're a React Native developer who only need push.

Quick picks by use case:

• Mobile apps. Knock for product notifications across channels, OneSignal for push-first marketing. See mobile apps.
• Small businesses and tight budgets. APNs and FCM are free, and Knock and OneSignal both have free plans. See pricing for small teams.
• Ease of use. See ease of use.
• Integrations. See integrations.
• Knock vs OneSignal. See the side-by-side table.

Top push notification providers at a glance

Based on our evaluation criteria below, we've shortlisted 8 solutions.

A note on APNs and FCM

Apple Push Notification service (APNs) and Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) are the native services Apple and Google provide so you can send push notifications to iOS and Android devices.

Most providers in this post sit on top of those services. They send iOS notifications through APNs and Android notifications through FCM, then add their own API, dashboard, and pricing.

FCM plays both roles. It is the Android delivery service, and it also sends web push and routes iOS notifications through APNs. APNs stays on Apple platforms: iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS.

We review both as providers below. Choose APNs when you want Apple's API for Apple devices. Choose FCM when you want one Google integration for Android, iOS, and the web.

How to evaluate push notification providers

A great transactional push notification provider will have several essential qualities:

• Reliability. They need to ensure that notifications are delivered consistently without delays or failures.
• Scalability. Can handle both small and large volumes of notifications without performance degradation.
• Rich content support. Allows for including images or custom data payloads to make notifications more engaging.
• Platform support. Offers cross-platform support for various devices and operating systems.
• Customizability. Allows developers to customize notification appearance, behavior, and user interactions.
• Cost. Offers competitive pricing, with plans that can scale with the needs of the business.

A provider that exceeds expectations in all of these areas will deliver a positive experience for both developers and end users.

Knock

Knock is the best fit when push is one part of your product's notification system. You send one API call, and Knock decides who gets notified, on which channel, and when, based on each user's preferences. It then delivers the push through APNs, FCM, Expo, Amazon SNS, or OneSignal.

Knock is an orchestration layer, so it sends notifications through one of those push providers rather than replacing them. APNs and FCM are free, so most teams use them with Knock, which adds all of the features you'd normally have to build yourself: retries, cross-channel fallbacks, batching, preferences, and logs for every message.

Knock also publishes live push API benchmarks based on real notifications sent through Knock to each provider. They show median and tail response times (p50 through p99) and 5xx error rates, updated daily. See the OneSignal benchmark and the FCM vs OneSignal comparison for the head-to-head numbers. Knock retries failed provider requests for you.

Knock features

• Advanced workflow functionalities. Build complex notification logic with advanced features like delays, batching, and throttling to prevent notification fatigue.
• Cross-channel support. Send notifications across all major channels (email, SMS, push, chat, and in-app messaging) from a single workflow.
• Mobile SDKs. Register push tokens, show real-time in-app feeds, and manage preferences with SDKs for iOS (Swift), Android (Kotlin), React Native, Expo, and Flutter.
• One push template for iOS and Android. Send the same templated message to APNs and FCM, and optionally remove invalid device tokens when a message bounces.
• Template editor + versioning. Create notification templates in your own design system, view live previews of any message type, and track changes over time with built-in version control.
• Rich observability. Monitor every notification with detailed logs, real-time delivery tracking, and comprehensive error reporting.
• Enterprise features. Scale securely with built-in multi-tenancy, granular permissions, and enterprise-grade compliance certifications.

Pros

• Purpose-built for developers. Designed from the ground up with APIs, SDKs, and developer experience as the primary focus.
• Extremely robust at scale. Handles millions of notifications reliably with infrastructure that grows with your needs.
• Excellent developer docs. Comprehensive documentation and well-maintained SDKs make implementation straightforward.

Cons

• Limited marketing push campaign features. If you primarily send marketing push campaigns to a large mobile audience, a push-first tool such as OneSignal has more campaign features out of the box.

Knock pricing

You can use Knock for free with the Free plan, which includes up to 10,000 messages per month. The Starter plan costs $250 per month, includes 50,000 messages (with $0.005 per message overages), and removes Knock branding. The Enterprise plan adds volume discounts and enterprise features like per-customer branding and preferences, i18n translations, and custom roles and permissions.

Every plan includes unlimited stored profiles, workflows, broadcasts, in-app guides, channels, and team members. Learn more about what's included on the Knock pricing page.

Apple Push Notification service (APNs)

Apple Push Notification service (APNs) is Apple's service for delivering notifications to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS. Notifications to Apple devices travel through APNs, whether you integrate it yourself or through a provider that uses it underneath.

APNs features

• Native Apple delivery. Sends notifications through Apple's infrastructure to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS.
• Rich notifications. Supports images, video, and interactive actions through notification service and content extensions.
• Silent push. Wakes an app in the background to fetch content or run a task without showing a visible notification.
• Token-based authentication. Uses a JSON Web Token so you manage one key instead of a certificate for every app.
• Priority levels. Sets delivery urgency so time-sensitive alerts take priority and lower-priority alerts respect battery life.
• Live Activities. Updates the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island with push-to-start and push-to-update tokens.

Pros

• Free. Apple does not charge per notification, at any volume.
• Native delivery. Fewer layers between your server and an Apple device.
• Rich content. Supports media, interactive elements, and Live Activities.
• Token-based authentication. Replaces per-app certificates with a single key.

Cons

• Apple platforms only. APNs does not deliver to Android or the web.
• Limited analytics. Apple provides device feedback, not open rates or a campaign dashboard.
• Credential setup. You need an Apple Developer account, a key or certificate, and device tokens before you can send.

APNs pricing

APNs is free. Apple does not charge for push delivery. You need an Apple Developer Program membership, which costs $99 per year.

How to integrate APNs with Knock

Knock enables you to build cross-channel messaging workflows and deliver push notifications through APNs. If you use APNs for iOS push and want to manage delivery through Knock, check out how to integrate APNs with Knock.

Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM)

Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) is Google's solution for sending push notifications and in-app messages to users. A successor to Google Cloud Messaging (GCM), FCM offers a way to deliver messages to Android, iOS, and web applications at no cost.

FCM features

• Cross-Platform Support. Delivers notifications to Android, iOS, and web applications.
• Topic subscription. Topic messaging allows users to subscribe to specific topics, facilitating easier segmentation.
• Upstream messaging. Mobile apps can send messages back to the server with upstream messaging.
• Rich media support. Ability to send images in notifications.
• High priority and normal priority options. Developers can prioritize messages based on importance, where high priority messages can even wake a sleeping device.
• Analytics integration. Integrates with Firebase Analytics to provide detailed insights.
• A/B testing. Allows developers to test different notification strategies on subsets of users.

Pros

• Free. There is no additional cost for using FCM's push notification capabilities.
• Scalable. Can handle both small and large volumes of notifications without performance degradation.
• Reliability. It is built on Google's infrastructure, ensuring consistent message delivery.
• Easy integration. Simplified SDKs and extensive documentation make integration straightforward.
• Advanced targeting. Supports user segmentation, topic-based, and conditional targeting.
• Server SDKs. Offers server SDKs in multiple languages, facilitating backend integration.

Cons

• Limited customization for iOS. While FCM supports iOS, some features and customizations might be more limited than native APNS.
• Payload limitations. It has a limited 4kb payload size, which can be restrictive for some use cases.
• Complex console UI. Some users find the Firebase Console UI and Notifications composer complex, especially when managing multiple features or apps.

FCM pricing

It is free, though if you are using other parts of the Google ecosystem, you might have to pay for those.

How to integrate FCM with Knock

Knock allows you to build cross-channel messaging workflows and deliver push notifications through downstream providers like FCM. If you use FCM for push and want to manage delivery through Knock, check out how to integrate FCM with Knock.

Amazon SNS

Amazon SNS (Simple Notification Service) is a notification service offered by AWS. Designed to provide developers with a mechanism to send messages and notifications to distributed systems, applications, and users, SNS isn't just for push notifications, it also supports SMS, email, and application endpoints.

Amazon SNS features

• Cross-platform support. Amazon SNS integrates with all major platforms so that you can send notifications to iOS, Android, Windows, and Baidu.
• Topic-based publishing. Allows grouping of multiple recipients using topics. This means you can send push notifications easily to just a subset of users to increase efficiency.
• High throughput. As the AWS system supports it, SNS is designed to deliver a high number of messages with low latency.

Pros

• Highly scalable. Built on AWS infrastructure, it's designed to scale automatically.
• Reliability. Offers a high durability rate, given the robustness of Amazon's infrastructure.
• Tight integration with AWS. SNS is deeply integrated with other AWS services, offering a seamless experience.
• Secure. Supports AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) for access control and AWS Key Management Service (KMS) for message encryption.

Cons

• Complex setup. New users to the AWS ecosystem might find the setup process involved.
• Overhead. If you only use SNS for push notifications, it offers more features than necessary, introducing potential overhead.

Amazon SNS pricing

The Amazon SNS pricing for push notifications gives you 1 million notifications for free before you start paying $0.50 per million notifications. However, if you use push notifications via SNS, you are likely using other service components, all of which are charged separately. So, you must consider the total cost of using the entire Amazon SNS ecosystem.

Expo

Expo is a framework and platform for building React Native applications. One of Expo's standout features is the ability to send push notifications with minimal setup, but it is much more than a notification provider. It offers tools and services that eliminate the need for developers to deal with natively coding iOS or Android applications, enabling faster prototyping and deployment.

Expo features

• Simplified integration. It is directly integrated with the Expo SDK, requiring minimal setup for basic notifications.
• Cross-platform. Handles APNs (for iOS) and FCM (for Android) under the hood and supports both iOS and Android with a single, unified API.
• Payload. You send a simple JSON format with fields for title, body, data, and so on for each notification.
• Rich content. The Expo JSON format supports sounds, badges, and other notification options.
• Receipts. Expo provides push receipts to check the status of sent notifications.
• Linking. As part of the Expo tooling, you can take advantage of the ability to deep link into specific parts of the application from the notification.

Pros

• Ease of use. One of the simplest ways to set up push notifications for React Native developers.
• No native code. Removes the need to write or maintain any platform-specific code.
• Unified API. A single API for both iOS and Android simplifies development and maintenance.
• Free. Expo's push notification service is free to use (if you are using Expo).

Cons

• Expo dependency. Relying on Expo's servers means if they have downtime, your push capability might be affected.
• Limited customization. Advanced customization possible with platform-specific APIs (like FCM for Android or APNS for iOS) might be restricted.
• Migrating complexity. If you decide to move on from Expo for more flexibility, integrating push notifications will require a different approach.
• Scalability concerns. For very high volumes, developers might want more control or have concerns about relying entirely on Expo's infrastructure.
• No web support. Expo's push notification system is geared towards mobile applications and does not support web notifications.
• Only works with React Native. You'll need to be building a React Native application for Expo and it's dependencies to work, as their service is tied to that ecosystem.

Expo pricing

Push notifications are free as part of Expo's pricing model. Instead, developers pay either per build or to use the entire platform. You can sign up for the Production level pricing at $99/month or the Enterprise level pricing at $999/month.

How to integrate Expo with Knock

Knock allows you to build cross-channel messaging workflows and deliver push notifications through downstream providers like Expo. If you use Expo for push and want to manage delivery through Knock, check out how to integrate Expo with Knock.

OneSignal

OneSignal is one of the most widely adopted push notification platforms on the market, offering mobile and web push alongside email, SMS, and in-app messages. It positions itself as a customer messaging platform with a visual-first toolset aimed at product and marketing teams, with SDKs and APIs for developers to integrate notifications into their apps.

OneSignal features

• Cross-platform support. Delivers push notifications to iOS, Android, web, Huawei, Amazon, and Windows, with additional channels for email, SMS, and in-app messages.
• Mobile SDKs. Cover native iOS and Android plus React Native, Expo, Flutter, Unity, .NET MAUI, Cordova, and Capacitor.
• Visual template editor. Build notifications with a drag-and-drop editor or code-based templates without a deploy.
• Segmentation and targeting. Create audience segments using user properties, tags, and behavioral events to target the right users.
• Journey and workflow builder. Coordinate multi-step campaigns across channels with branching logic and send windows.
• A/B testing. Run experiments on copy and delivery timing to measure what drives engagement.
• Analytics and reporting. Dashboards for delivery, open rates, conversions, and funnel analysis.

Pros

• Fast to get started. SDKs, prebuilt UI, and a guided setup make it easy to send your first notification within an hour.
• Generous free tier. Unlimited mobile push for apps with up to 1,000 monthly active users makes OneSignal accessible for small teams and hobby projects.
• Marketing-friendly UI. Non-technical teammates can compose, target, and schedule campaigns without engineering help.
• Broad channel coverage. Push, email, SMS, and in-app in a single platform.

Cons

• Limited orchestration for transactional notifications. The workflow builder is well-suited for marketing campaigns but lacks the granular, event-driven control engineering teams need for transactional product messaging.
• Subscription-based preferences model. OneSignal's subscription/tag model is less flexible than a user-and-channel preference model for complex cross-channel preference logic.
• Environment management. Separated environments for development, staging, and production aren't first-class, which can complicate team workflows.
• Weaker observability. Debugging individual message delivery and tracing notifications end-to-end is more limited than dedicated infrastructure platforms.

OneSignal pricing

OneSignal pricing starts with a free plan that includes unlimited mobile push and in-app messages for apps with up to 1,000 monthly active users, web push to up to 10,000 subscribers per send, and 10,000 emails per month. The Growth plan starts at $19 per month, plus $0.012 per mobile monthly active user and $0.004 per web push subscriber. Professional and Enterprise plans are annual contracts with custom pricing. SMS is priced separately.

How to integrate OneSignal with Knock

If you want to use OneSignal for push delivery while orchestrating transactional notifications through Knock, you can route OneSignal as a push channel from within a Knock workflow. This gives you Knock's cross-channel preferences, batching, delays, and observability while continuing to use OneSignal's delivery infrastructure. See how to integrate OneSignal with Knock for setup details. To decide between the two, see the Knock vs OneSignal comparison.

Pusher Beams

Pusher Beams is the Pusher product focused on delivering push notifications (we covered Pusher Channels when talking about real-time messaging services). Designed to ensure that individual users receive timely and contextually relevant notifications, Pusher Beams emphasizes developer experience and user-centricity.

Pusher Beams features

• Cross-platform support. Delivers notifications to iOS, Android, and web platforms.
• SDK integration. Pusher Beams provides several SDKs for different languages and client SDKs for iOS and Android.
• Interest-based filtering. Using device interests, developers can group users based on interests for targeted notifications.
• End-to-end encryption. Ensures data privacy from the server to the device.
• Detailed delivery and open tracking. Insights allow developers to see delivery and acknowledgment rates and user interactions.
• Scalable Infrastructure. They are designed to handle large volumes of notifications.

Pros

• User privacy. By design, Beams does not require you to share private user data.
• Easy integration. With its SDKs and clear documentation, integrating Beams is relatively straightforward.
• Reliability. Leveraging Pusher's infrastructure ensures a high rate of message delivery.
• Rich insights. The tracking features provide actionable insights into user engagement and notification performance.

Cons

• Cost. While there's a free tier, higher volumes of notifications come with associated costs.
• Reliance on other platforms. Beams still relies on underlying platforms like APNS and FCM for final message delivery.

Pusher Beams pricing

Pusher Beams has the most complicated pricing model out of all the options on this list:

• The free Sandbox tier allows you to send push notifications to 1,000 subscribers.
• The $29/month Startup tier allows you to send push notifications to 10,000 subscribers.
• The $99/month Pro tier allows you to send push notifications to 50,000 subscribers.
• The $199/month Business tier allows you to send push notifications to 115,000 subscribers.
• The $23999/month Premium tier allows you to send push notifications to 250,000 subscribers.

PubNub

PubNub, like Pusher, offers more than just push notifications. It is a comprehensive real-time messaging platform. It uses a globally distributed edge network to ensure low-latency, reliable messaging regardless of scale or user location. It also comes with robust SDKs for numerous platforms and languages.

PubNub features

• Cross-platform support. Delivers push notifications to iOS, Android, and web platforms.
• Real-time messaging integration. Integrates push notifications with PubNub's core real-time messaging service.
• Topic and channel-based. Leverages PubNub channels to send push notifications to specific topic subscribers.
• Payload customization. Flexible message payloads that can include custom data.
• Platform integrations. Directly integrates with APNS and FCM for delivering notifications.
• Analytics. Provides insights into message delivery and user engagement.

Pros

• Integrated solution. Combines the power of real-time messaging with push notifications.
• Reliable. It is built on a globally distributed network, ensuring low latency and consistent delivery.
• Ease of use. With SDKs in various languages, integrating PubNub is straightforward.
• Scalability. Capable of handling vast numbers of messages and notifications without degradation in performance.
• High customizability. Offers flexibility in message content, user targeting, and delivery options.

Cons

• Cost. Unlike some other providers that offer free push notifications, PubNub's services will eventually cost as you scale.
• Overhead. If you're only looking for push notifications and not real-time messaging, PubNub might offer more features than needed.
• Learning curve. For developers new to PubNub, understanding channels and other concepts might take some time.
• Documentation. While extensive, some users need help navigating the documentation.

PubNub pricing

PubNub pricing includes push notification transactions in PubNub's Monthly Active Users (MAU) pricing model. This makes push notifications free when you have up to either 200 MAUs or 1M total transactions per month.

Beyond that, you move to the $49/month tier with up to 1000 MAUs and 3000 transactions per MAU. If you scale beyond those numbers, you can contact them for custom pricing. Note that on the free tier, push notifications are rate-limited.

Knock vs OneSignal for push notifications

Knock and OneSignal solve different problems. OneSignal is a push-first messaging platform built for marketing campaigns. Knock is messaging infrastructure for product notifications, such as comments, approvals, alerts, and digests, that need to reach users on the right channel. Some teams use them together, with Knock running the workflow and OneSignal delivering the push.

OneSignal details come from OneSignal's pricing page and SDK docs as of October 2026. For a full feature breakdown, see Knock vs OneSignal. For live performance data, see the OneSignal push API benchmark.

Choosing a push notification provider by use case

Which push notification provider is best for mobile apps?

For product notifications in a mobile app, Knock is the stronger choice. For push-first marketing campaigns, OneSignal is the faster start.

Knock gives mobile teams native SDKs for every major stack, so you can register push tokens, show a real-time in-app feed, and let users manage their preferences from the same SDK:

• iOS. The Swift SDK supports iOS, macOS, and watchOS.
• Android. The Kotlin SDK.
• React Native. The React Native SDK for apps not built with Expo.
• Expo. The Expo SDK for React Native apps built with Expo.
• Flutter. The Flutter SDK for iOS and Android.

Where Knock helps most on mobile is the logic around the push. A workflow can send an in-app message first, then send a push only if the user has not seen it. It can batch ten comment alerts into one push, respect each user's preferences, and fall back to email. You build that once in Knock instead of in every app.

OneSignal supports more mobile frameworks, including Unity, .NET MAUI, Cordova, and Capacitor, and adds marketing features like Live Activities and in-app carousels. If your team builds games or hybrid apps on those frameworks, or mostly sends campaigns, OneSignal is a good fit.

Which push notification provider is best for small businesses?

If cost is the main concern, start with APNs and FCM, which are free at any volume. If you want a full platform without paying, Knock and OneSignal both have free plans, sized in different ways.

• Knock. The Free plan is free for up to 10,000 messages per month, with unlimited channels, team members, recipients, and workflows. That covers push, email, in-app, SMS, and chat from one account. The Starter plan is $250 per month with 50,000 messages. Knock does not hard cap the free plan; if you go over, the team gets in touch about adding a billing method.
• OneSignal. The free plan includes unlimited mobile push for apps with up to 1,000 monthly active users. The Growth plan starts at $19 per month plus $0.012 per mobile monthly active user.

The right choice depends on what you send. A small app that sends a few marketing pushes to many users may pay less with OneSignal. A small SaaS product that sends a moderate number of notifications across push, email, and in-app often fits inside Knock's free plan.

Which push notification provider is easiest to use?

OneSignal is easy to start for marketers who want to compose and schedule campaigns in a dashboard. Knock is easier for teams who want engineers and non-engineers working on the same notifications without stepping on each other's toes.

With Knock, engineers trigger a workflow with one API call and use the SDKs, CLI, and Management API to keep notifications in code review. Product and marketing teams can manage workflows, edit templates, and schedule sends in visual builders without engineering help. Separate environments mean every change can be tested before reaching users, and detailed message logs show what happened with every notification.

Expo is the simplest option for React Native developers who only need push, and FCM is a straightforward way to send to Android, iOS, and the web from one Google integration.

Which push notification provider has the best integrations?

Knock is the better fit if you already have messaging providers across email, SMS, push, and chat that you want to keep using. OneSignal may be a better fit if you want push and email delivery bundled into one vendor.

Knock sends push through APNs, FCM, Expo, Amazon SNS, and OneSignal. Beyond push, it integrates with email providers such as SendGrid, Postmark, Amazon SES, and Resend; SMS providers such as Twilio, Telnyx, and Vonage; and chat apps including Slack, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp, and Discord. Because Knock sits above your providers, you can switch or add a push provider without changing your app code.

With Knock, you can also trigger messaging from CDPs such as Segment and RudderStack, from reverse ETL tools such as Hightouch and Census, and connected tools like PostHog, Clerk, Stripe, and more.

Knock lists 70+ integrations, available across all plans. OneSignal delivers its own push, email, and SMS, and lists 30+ integrations available on its free plan, with more on paid plans.

Send push notifications with Knock

Push notifications help you reach users with timely updates and bring them back to your app. You can integrate free services like APNs or FCM yourself, but you end up managing certificates, device tokens, delievery logic, and preferences yourself.

Knock handles all of that for you. Use the Knock agent to create sophisticated push notification workflows, trigger them via API call, product event, or audience change, and have them send messaging across any channel, including in-app, email, push, SMS, and Slack. Features like batching, throttling, and advanced preferences help to reduce notification fatigue.

Knock integrates with APNs, FCM, Expo, Amazon SNS, and OneSignal. Learn more about push notifications with Knock.

If you want to try it out, sign up for a free account or chat with our team.

Frequently asked questions

How do I choose the right push notification provider for my application?

Consider your technical requirements, platform needs, and scalability goals when selecting a provider. If you're building with React Native, Expo offers simplicity but limits future flexibility. For enterprise applications requiring robust delivery, Amazon SNS provides reliability within the AWS ecosystem. Teams needing cross-channel orchestration may benefit from using Knock to manage notifications across multiple providers.

What essential features should I look for in a push notification provider?

Prioritize reliability for consistent delivery, scalability for growing volumes, and rich content support for engaging notifications. Other crucial features include cross-platform compatibility (especially if targeting both iOS and Android), customization options like topic-based filtering (available in SNS, FCM, and PubNub), and detailed analytics to track delivery rates and user engagement.

What's the cost of using a push notification provider at scale?

Pricing varies widely between providers. FCM and APNs are free at any volume, while Amazon SNS charges $0.50 per million notifications after your first million. Knock charges per message sent: free up to 10,000 messages per month, then $250 per month for 50,000 messages and $0.005 per additional message. OneSignal charges per monthly active user, starting at $19 per month plus $0.012 per mobile monthly active user. Pusher Beams uses a subscriber-based model starting at $29/month for 10,000 subscribers, and PubNub ties push notification costs to their Monthly Active Users pricing. Consider how these models align with your growth trajectory when selecting a provider.

What is the best push notification provider for mobile apps?

Knock is the best fit for product notifications in mobile apps, such as activity alerts, approvals, and digests, because it combines push with in-app feeds, email, and user preferences in one workflow. Knock has SDKs for iOS (Swift), Android (Kotlin), React Native, Expo, and Flutter. OneSignal is a good fit for push-first marketing campaigns and supports more frameworks, including Unity, Cordova, and Capacitor.

What is the best free or affordable push notification provider for small businesses?

FCM and APNs are free at any volume, but you build everything around them yourself. Knock's Free plan is free for up to 10,000 messages per month across push, email, in-app, SMS, and chat, with unlimited team members. OneSignal's free plan includes unlimited mobile push for apps with up to 1,000 monthly active users. Pick based on how many users you have and how many channels you need.

Is Knock or OneSignal better for push notifications?

Knock is better for product and transactional notifications that need preferences, batching, cross-channel fallbacks, and message-level logs. OneSignal is better for marketing push campaigns run from a dashboard. You can also use both: Knock can send push through OneSignal as one of its delivery providers. See the full Knock vs OneSignal comparison.

Can I use Knock with OneSignal?

Yes. OneSignal is one of Knock's supported push providers, along with APNs, FCM, Expo, and Amazon SNS. Knock runs the workflow logic and user preferences, then hands the push to OneSignal for delivery.

Which mobile SDKs does Knock support?

Knock has client SDKs for iOS, macOS, and watchOS (Swift), Android (Kotlin), React Native, Expo, and Flutter, plus React and JavaScript for the web. The mobile SDKs register push tokens with Knock, power real-time in-app feeds, and let users manage notification preferences.

Does Knock have a free plan?

Yes. Knock's Free plan is free for up to 10,000 messages per month, with unlimited channels, team members, recipients, and workflows. The Starter plan is $250 per month with 50,000 messages included. See Knock pricing.

Which push notification provider is easiest to use?

For React Native apps that only need push, Expo is the simplest. For marketing teams sending campaigns, OneSignal's dashboard is quick to learn. For product teams, Knock is built so engineers and non-engineers can share the same notifications: engineers trigger workflows with one API call, and product or marketing teams edit templates and workflows in a visual editor without a deploy.

What integrations does Knock support for push notifications?

Knock sends push through APNs, FCM, Expo, Amazon SNS, and OneSignal. It also connects to email, SMS, and chat providers such as SendGrid, Twilio, and Slack, and can be triggered from Segment, RudderStack, Hightouch, and Census.

How fast are push notification APIs like FCM, APNs, and OneSignal?

Knock tracks this in its live push API benchmarks, which report median and p99 API response times and 5xx error rates for APNs, FCM, Expo, Amazon SNS, and OneSignal, based on real notifications sent through Knock and updated daily. See the FCM vs OneSignal comparison for a head-to-head view.

How difficult is it to migrate from one push notification provider to another?

Migration complexity depends on how deeply integrated the current provider is with your application architecture. Using a notification orchestration system like Knock significantly simplifies migration by keeping your notification templates and business logic in a central place independent of the underlying provider. This abstraction layer allows you to switch providers with minimal changes to your application code and without disrupting the user experience.

How do web push notifications differ from mobile push notifications?

Web push runs through browsers like Chrome and Firefox and requires the user to keep the browser running, while mobile push works through OS-level services like APNs and FCM. Web push is great for re-engagement on desktop but has more limitations regarding offline delivery and interactivity. FCM supports both web and mobile platforms, which is why it's often the go-to for teams building cross-platform experiences.

Is it better to manage push notifications directly or use a notification infrastructure platform?

Managing push notifications directly gives you control but becomes complex when scaling across multiple channels or platforms. Orchestration platforms like Knock handle the notification infrastructure, including retries, batching (collapsing multiple notifications about a single topic), and user preferences. This approach is ideal for teams that want to move faster while maintaining reliability across notification channels.