Ask HN: Best No/Low-code solution to creating a notification service?

12 points by VoxelBoy 3 years ago | 5 comments

Hi everyone,

I'm a game developer with a web/mobile business idea and very little time on his hands due to being a single parent. I'm looking the solution that requires the least effort to creating an MVP of this project.

Summary: "Send push notification when a new software/package version is available".

Parts needed (as far as I can imagine): - Simple website for accounts/signups and managing of preferences (for which software/packages to receive notifications for). - Backend for checking RSS feeds, json files, or scraping simple websites to check software/packages' latest versions. - Payment/billing system. - Mobile app for users to receive push notifications - Push notification service

I've played around with IFTTT and Zapier to create some simple prototypes but to glue all the parts together seems like a daunting task, especially considering how little time I have.

I've also looked around on Upwork to find the right 1-2 developers to develop this for me but haven't found anyone I can feel that I can trust.

Looking forward to any advice/feedback. Thanks!

Malazath 3 years ago |

I guess shameless plug, but:

I work at and helped start (though through bifurcation) a startup that focuses on this sort of thing. Might be worth a check: https://userwise.io

I will admit we’d be a sort of overkill for just notification services, but the other features we offer on top may also interest you

phphphphp 3 years ago |

Typeform + Make.com + courier.com. Gluing various services together will take much less time than it would take to find someone to build it for you and it’ll probably have a better outcome — because gluing services together will highlight missing product design decisions that need to be made, which you can make yourself, rather than unintentionally allowing developers to make decisions.

…or if you want a co-founder who can do the building for you, and you do the vision, business etc. I’m available :)

thesuperbigfrog 3 years ago |

Perhaps use a readily available solution?

https://aws.amazon.com/sns/

PenguinCoder 3 years ago |

Is this something for your own use or for others to sign up and use?

A couple of ways to send yourself some simple notifications included services like Gotify or nfty.sh. You'd still have to put together any type of scrapping you want/ need, but either of those (or others) would handle the notification aspect with a simple http push.

_448 3 years ago |

If you are developing the backend then Pushpin[0] is the easiest to integrate with.

[0] https://pushpin.org