# Pocket Alert vs Simplepush > Simplepush alternative for alerts from your systems: inbound webhooks with JSON mapping and a full call log, scheduled delivery, action buttons, and message history in app and web. iOS and Android. Simplepush relaunched in September 2026 as a two-way tool: send a task to a phone, collect the answer, and let an AI agent search what came back. It has a generous free tier, five priority levels and opt-in end-to-end encryption. What it does not do is take webhooks from other services. Pocket Alert is built for that side of alerting: a webhook URL per source with field mapping and a log of every call, scheduled delivery, action buttons that call an endpoint, and a history you can open in the app and the dashboard. ## Where Simplepush is not built for alerts Its new focus is tasks for people in the field. Alerts from your own infrastructure need a few different things. - **No inbound webhooks** — GitHub, Grafana or Stripe cannot post their own JSON to Simplepush. Every source has to call its API with its headers, so a script sits in between. - **Alerts do not stay** — A notification leaves no record on the phone once dismissed. History is read through the CLI or an agent, needs a subscription, and is pruned after three months. - **No scheduling** — There is no scheduled or delayed delivery. Sending something at 9am tomorrow means your own cron or an agent’s scheduler. - **Buttons answer, they do not act** — Buttons return a key to the sender, or open one link. None calls an HTTP endpoint or copies a value on its own. ## Pocket Alert vs Simplepush, feature by feature Both send from one HTTP request to iPhone and Android. The difference is what happens before the request and after the tap. ### Where you use it - **iOS app** — Pocket Alert: Yes; Simplepush: Yes (iOS 15.1 and later) - **Android app** — Pocket Alert: Yes; Simplepush: Yes (Android 7 and later) - **Web dashboard** — Pocket Alert: Yes (Devices, keys, apps, webhooks); Simplepush: No (Not documented) - **Chrome extension** — Pocket Alert: Yes (Send a link or note to your phone); Simplepush: No - **Command-line tool** — Pocket Alert: Yes (Official binary for Linux, macOS, Windows); Simplepush: Yes (sp, open source) - **MCP server for AI agents** — Pocket Alert: Yes (10 tools); Simplepush: Yes (Hosted, 14 tools) ### Sending alerts - **Send via HTTP API** — Pocket Alert: Yes; Simplepush: Yes (Header-based or JSON) - **Inbound webhook URL per source** — Pocket Alert: Yes (One URL per service); Simplepush: No - **Payload mapping into the message** — Pocket Alert: Yes (%field.path% into title, body and buttons); Simplepush: No - **Scheduled delivery** — Pocket Alert: Yes (Up to 30 days, listable and cancellable); Simplepush: No (Task deadlines only) - **Priority levels** — Pocket Alert: Yes (Five, silent to critical); Simplepush: Yes (Five, 1–5) - **Critical alerts that override Do Not Disturb** — Pocket Alert: Yes (On paid plans); Simplepush: Yes (Priority 5 on iOS and Android) - **Action buttons on the notification** — Pocket Alert: Yes (Up to 3: open, HTTP request, copy); Simplepush: Partly (Answer buttons or one link, no HTTP or copy) - **Attachments** — Pocket Alert: Yes (Images); Simplepush: Yes (Photos, audio and files via SDK or CLI) - **Grouping by source** — Pocket Alert: Yes (Applications, filtered in the app); Simplepush: Yes (Topics) - **Email delivery** — Pocket Alert: No; Simplepush: No - **SMS or phone-call delivery** — Pocket Alert: No; Simplepush: No ### Records and debugging - **Message history** — Pocket Alert: Yes (Account-wide, synced to app and web); Simplepush: Partly (Through the CLI or MCP, on paid plans) - **Webhook call log** — Pocket Alert: Yes (Headers, payload, rendered message, result); Simplepush: No - **History retention** — Pocket Alert: Yes (Messages until you delete them; webhook calls 7–365 days by plan); Simplepush: Partly (Pruned after 3 months) - **Delivery statistics** — Pocket Alert: Yes (Per application and per device); Simplepush: No ### Account and data - **Content encryption** — Pocket Alert: Yes (At rest with a per-account key, secrets redacted); Simplepush: Yes (Opt-in end-to-end) - **Two-factor authentication** — Pocket Alert: Yes (TOTP with recovery codes); Simplepush: Partly (Not documented) - **Open source or self-hosted** — Pocket Alert: No; Simplepush: No (CLI and SDKs are open source) Simplepush relaunched as a new product on 9 September 2026. Data from simplepu.sh (guide, changelog, pricing, privacy) and its App Store and Google Play listings, checked October 2026. ## Pricing - **Free plan** — Pocket Alert: 50 messages a day, no card; Simplepush: 2,500 requests a day, end-to-end encryption included - **Entry paid plan** — Pocket Alert: $6/month — 1,000 messages a day, 5 webhooks; Simplepush: Solo, $6/month — 10,000 requests a day - **Highest tier** — Pocket Alert: $25/month — unlimited messages, 365-day history; Simplepush: Team, $12 per seat / month Pocket Alert pricing as of October 2026. Simplepush figures from simplepu.sh. ## Coming from Simplepush 1. **Install and get a key** — Install the app on your iPhone or Android phone, sign in, and copy your API key from the dashboard. 2. **Swap the endpoint** — Move Title and Content from headers into a JSON body as title and message. Priority 4 becomes high, 5 becomes critical. 3. **Point services at webhooks** — For services you were bridging with a script, create a webhook and map their JSON with %field.path%. 4. **Keep tasks where they work** — If you collect answers from people in the field, that is where Simplepush is strong. Move the alerts, keep the tasks. ### Before: Simplepush ```bash curl -X POST https://api.simplepu.sh/v1/notifications \ -H 'API-Token: YOUR_API_TOKEN' \ -H 'Title: Deploy finished' \ -H 'Content: main is live' \ -H 'Priority: 4' ``` ### After: Pocket Alert ```bash curl https://api.pocketalert.app/v1/messages \ -H 'Token: YOUR_API_KEY' \ -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \ -d '{ "title": "Deploy finished", "message": "main is live", "level": "high" }' ``` ## FAQ ### How is Pocket Alert different from the new Simplepush? Since September 2026 Simplepush is built around two-way tasks: you send a question to a phone, get an answer back, and an AI agent can search everything that came in. Pocket Alert is built around one-way alerts from your systems: a webhook URL per source with field mapping, a log of every call, scheduled delivery, action buttons that call an endpoint or copy a value, and a history in the app and the web dashboard. ### Which one has the bigger free plan? Simplepush, by a wide margin: 2,500 requests a day, against 50 messages a day on Pocket Alert’s free plan. Paid plans start at $6 a month on both, with 10,000 requests a day on Simplepush Solo and 1,000 messages a day on Pocket Alert, which also adds devices, webhooks and scheduling. ### What about encryption? Simplepush offers opt-in end-to-end encryption for personal accounts and whole organizations, so its servers cannot read the content. Pocket Alert does not do end-to-end: it encrypts content at rest with a key per account, redacts authorization headers before storing webhook payloads, and offers TOTP two-factor on the account. If the server must never read a message, Simplepush covers it and Pocket Alert does not. ### Can GitHub or Grafana send to Simplepush directly? Not according to its documentation. Every request uses Simplepush’s own API with an `API-Token` header, so a service that only sends its own webhook JSON needs a script in between. A Pocket Alert webhook takes the raw payload, maps fields into the title, body and buttons with `%field.path%`, and records each call with its headers, payload and result. ### Where do old alerts go? On Simplepush a notification leaves no record on the phone once it is dismissed. History lives on the server, is read through the CLI or an AI agent, needs a subscription on personal accounts, and is pruned after three months. Pocket Alert keeps message history in the app and the dashboard until you delete it, and logs webhook calls for 7 to 365 days depending on plan.