Prowl vs Pushover Notifications
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Prowl
Receive push notifications from your computer and various apps directly on your iOS device. Integrate the API into your own applications for custom alerts. Supports email-to-push and offers features like quiet hours and notification history.
- Push notifications from Mac/Windows
- Support for numerous apps/services
- Email to push functionality
- Customizable notification delivery
- Quiet Hours and Do Not Disturb modes
- Notification history and control
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Prowl is an easy push notifications client iOS. Push to your device notifications from your Mac or Windows computer, or from a multitude of apps and services. Easily integrate the Prowl API into your applications. A list of supported apps/services: http://prowlapp.com/apps.php The only limit of what the service can do is your imagination. REQUIREMENTS To receive notifications from your computer, you need the latest: • Growl on your Mac @ growl.info, or • Growl for Windows @ growlforwindows.com, or • Snarl on Windows @ fullphat.net, or • Any program or web service using the public API. THE CRITICS "I was extremely impressed with Prowl and the elegance with which I was able to view Growl notifications on my iPhone.” —Aron Trimble, TUAW "[A] powerful tool to connect your Mac with your iPhone, seamlessly over the air. —Federico Viticci, MacStories "Great idea. This opens up iPhone push notifications for anything you can think of.” —John Gruber, Daring Fireball "Probably the best $3 I’ve ever spent in the App Store.” —Darrell Etherington, The Apple Blog FEATURES • Push Notifications—When a Growl notification pops up on your computer, it's sent to Prowl and displayed on your iOS device within seconds. • Sweet application support—Prowl has support from a bunch of cool applications and services. Check out the full list at http://prowlapp.com/apps.php • Redirections—Launch a different application when you open a push notification. For example, a notification from your desktop Twitter client can relaunch into your favorite mobile client. You can even pick custom URLs to launch, so you can go anywhere! • Email to push—Use your Prowl email address (from the Prowl homepage's "API keys" tab) to get email delivery right on your device. Generate as many email addresses as you need! • An amazing API—Use the Prowl API with a multitude of libraries in various programming languages. You can send notifications from anything that can talk to the internet, and do some fun things along with it. • Quiet Hours—During the hours you specify, only the badge numbers are updated. No matter the source. Instead of getting a noisy alert, messages are quietly delivered. You can allow emergency-priority items to break quiet hours. • Do Not Disturb—Keep the application quiet whenever you're busy, or when you need a break from a constant alert. Controllable from within the application. • Control—Open the edit view to get a quick glance at your notifications, and do away with pesky ones. Quickly copy, email or SMS a notification directly from Prowl (depending on device and iOS version). • Browse quickly—Use Prowl's internal browser to quickly open links from a notification without having to open Safari. • History—Up to 10 days of notifications are kept on the server. You can delete notifications that you don't want to see any more, or remove all of your history. • Customized notifications—Only events you want are sent to Prowl. You can specify all kinds of conditions from the Prowl plugin for Growl. • Send any message to your device—From the Prowl website, you can send any text to your device: links and phone numbers are automatically linked, so you can easily navigate around without having to worry about typos. From the website or API, you can also automatically redirect to the attached URL. SETUP Prowl is built into Growl 2.0. For earlier versions: http://prowlapp.com/installation.php — for Mac. http://growlforwindows.com — for Windows. SUPPORT @prowlapp on Twitter http://prowlapp.com/support.php
Pushover Notifications
This service sends custom push notifications from various web apps, scripts, and devices directly to your iPhone, iPad, or desktop. It offers a free trial with a one-time purchase for unlimited usage, and includes an Apple Watch app for on-the-go alerts.
- Custom push notifications
- Web app integration
- Script and IoT device support
- Apple Watch app and complications
- API for custom app development
- Free 30-day trial
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Pushover is a simple push notification service that integrates easily into web apps like IFTTT, network monitoring systems, security cameras, shell scripts, IoT devices, webhooks, and anything else that needs to send alerts to your iPhone, iPad, Desktop, and other robot-like mobile devices. App has a free 30-day trial and unlimited usage beyond the trial requires a one-time in-app purchase. Pushover includes an Apple Watch app and complications so you can push custom data straight to your watch face with our Glances API. Visit https://pushover.net to find apps, plugins, and services that already natively support Pushover, or get a free API key for your own apps.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Pushover Notifications at Free against Prowl's $2.99. Pushover Notifications also leads on update cadence (every 4 weeks vs every 7 months) and ratings volume (3.6K vs 106). Prowl's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 3) and iOS requirement (8.0 vs 15.6). On review sentiment, ads and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Pushover Notifications is free to download; Prowl costs $2.99 up front. Pushover Notifications sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Prowl asks for nothing beyond the download.
Pushover Notifications holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Pushover Notifications has 3.6K ratings behind it against 106, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 88% of Prowl's written reviews are positive against 92% of Pushover Notifications's.
Prowl ships an update every 7 months, Pushover Notifications every 4 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 22, 2026 and September 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Prowl | Pushover Notifications |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $2.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.6 (106 ratings) | 4.8 (3.6K ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 87.7% of reviews | 91.6% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 106 | 3.6K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 7 months | Every 4 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Free with in-app purchases — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — better |
| Requires iOS | 8.0 — better | 15.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 3 MB | 11 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Prowl Solutions LLC | Pushover, LLC |
Customer experience
Prowl
Pushover Notifications
User reviews
Prowl
From 106 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Works consistently and reliably
- 🚀 Versatile and customizable
- 👍 Easy to set up and use
- 👍 Indispensable for monitoring and notifications
- 🚀 Prompt and fast push notifications
Room to improve
- 🐛 Occasional visual bugs or glitches
- 📚 Interface looks dated and needs update
- 🔋 High battery consumption when used extensively
Pushover Notifications
From 3.6K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Fantastic service
- 👍 Couldn't be easier
- 👍 Best App on my phone for awareness of energy efficient house
- 👍 Really good app
- 👍 Truly excellent
Room to improve
- 🐛 Stopped working after I paid for it
- 🐛 Hasn't worked yet
- 🐛 Charged twice for liscense
- 🐛 Needs volume for other things besides critical
- 🐛 Encrypted message
Bugs and requests
Prowl
Reported bugs
2 issues- Inconsistent notification delivery
- Login issues on mobile app
Requested features
4 requests- Support for modern iPhone screen sizes
- Custom notification sounds
- Improved notification management (e.g. delete multiple)
- Integration with Apple Watch
Pushover Notifications
Reported bugs
3 issues- Notifications not working after update
- Syncing issues causing crashes
- Notifications re-appearing after being deleted
Requested features
5 requests- Add a delete all notifications option
- Add support for custom notification sounds
- Add 24-hour time format option
- Improve Apple Watch notifications
- Add custom actions to notifications
In-app purchases
Prowl
No in-app purchases
Pushover Notifications
- Pushover License$4.99
- Tip$4.99
- Tip$9.99
Questions
Is Prowl free?
Is Pushover Notifications free?
Which has better reviews, Prowl or Pushover Notifications?
Do Prowl or Pushover Notifications have ads?
Which is updated more often, Prowl or Pushover Notifications?
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