🐝 Push Notifications that Buzz—Without the Complexity
Pushbee is a lightweight push notification service for Apple devices that abstracts away all the APNs complexity. No SDKs. No backend required. Just clean REST endpoints your app can call directly from the device—and a powerful dashboard to schedule and manage notifications visually.
Why Pushbee?
In nature, bees are precise, tireless messengers—delivering exactly what’s needed, exactly where it’s needed. We built Pushbee with the same philosophy.
Push notifications for Apple devices have always been needlessly complex—requiring SDKs, APNs setup, token juggling, and intricate scheduling logic. Pushbee abstracts that all away with a clean, developer-first REST API that just works.
Like a bee, Pushbee quietly handles the hard work in the background—so your app stays connected, your users stay engaged, and you can focus on what you do best: building.
Key Features
Who's it for?
Pushbee is ideal for developers and teams who want to:
- 🐝 Use push notifications without integrating an SDK
- 🐝 Send iOS push notifications without managing APNs
- 🐝 Integrate push delivery using simple REST APIs
- 🐝 Segment users using tags and events
- 🐝 Schedule notifications for higher retention and engagement
- 🐝 Tag devices from your backend to reflect user actions and business logic
How Pushbee is Different
Most push notification platforms—like Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) and OneSignal—are built for large-scale, cross-platform delivery and come bundled with broader service suites. Pushbee is focused by design: it delivers lightweight, backend-free push delivery with features like native recurring scheduling that others don’t offer out of the box.
- 🐝 No SDKs — Pushbee works with direct HTTPS requests. Nothing to link or embed in your app.
- 🐝 Automatic recurring scheduling — Unlike Firebase, Pushbee supports recurring push schedules out of the box.
- 🐝 Segment-first — Easily tag and segment users without complex server logic.
- 🐝 Serverless ready — Lightweight endpoints integrate perfectly with serverless workflows.
- 🐝 No vendor lock-in — Full control with simple HTTPS APIs and no opaque logic or bindings.
| Feature | Pushbee | Firebase | OneSignal |
|---|---|---|---|
| No SDK required | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Schedule recurring notifications | ✅ | ❌ (manual) | ✅ |
| Segment users via tags | ✅ | ✅ (topics) | ✅ |
| Built-in dashboard | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Notification analytics | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Built-in user targeting UI | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Additional services (auth, DB, etc) | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
| CLI or API-only control | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ (limited) |
| No vendor lock-in | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
Real-World Use Case
Imagine you're building a lightweight meditation app. You want to send your users a gentle reminder each day at 8 AM local time to start their session—but you don't want to manage a backend, schedule jobs, or deal with APNs intricacies.
With Pushbee, the app can register the device and request a recurring push notification directly. No server logic, no certificate juggling, and no syncing with time zones. The schedule is stored and maintained automatically by Pushbee.
Services like Firebase and OneSignal typically require setting up a backend, managing user sessions, and handling recurring jobs manually. Pushbee makes this seamless out of the box with a simple HTTPS call.
This makes Pushbee a perfect fit for indie developers, wellness apps, habit trackers, or any experience that benefits from reliable, low-overhead reminders—without the complexity of traditional notification services.
What About Android?
Pushbee is currently optimized for iOS push delivery using Apple Push Notification service (APNs), with a strong focus on simplicity and native integration.
Android support is on our roadmap. Android requires integration with Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) — Google’s push delivery system used by most Android devices. For apps distributed through the Google Play Store and running on Google-certified devices, FCM is the only supported push mechanism.: if you want to send push notifications to Android devices, FCM is the only option.
Pushbee will integrate with the modern HTTP v1 FCM API behind the scenes. This means your Android apps will be able to register tokens with Pushbee and receive notifications just like your iOS users do today — without requiring you to touch FCM directly.
Our goal is to give developers a unified, backend-free experience across platforms. When Android support ships, you’ll be able to:
- Register Android tokens directly from the device
- Send or schedule notifications via the same REST API
- Tag, segment, and track Android users like iOS users
Pushbee will handle the complexity of FCM’s secure authentication, message formatting, and token handling — so you don’t have to.
API Examples
These API calls and console previews are early concepts and may change before launch.
POST /devices/register
Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY
Content-Type: application/json
{
"device_id": "A1B2C3D4",
"token": "abc123xyz456",
"platform": "ios"
}
// Swift (Alamofire): Register device token
import Alamofire
AF.request("https://api.pushbee.io/devices/register",
method: .post,
headers: [
"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY",
"Content-Type": "application/json"
],
parameters: [
"device_id": "A1B2C3D4",
"token": "abc123xyz456",
"platform": "ios"
],
encoding: JSONEncoding.default)
POST /devices/A1B2C3D4/tags
Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY
Content-Type: application/json
{
"tags": ["news", "promos", "user:123"]
}
// Swift (Alamofire): Tag device
import Alamofire
AF.request("https://api.pushbee.io/devices/A1B2C3D4/tags",
method: .post,
headers: [
"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY",
"Content-Type": "application/json"
],
parameters: [
"tags": ["news", "promos", "last-action-2025-05-20"]
],
encoding: JSONEncoding.default)
Pushbee Console (Concept Preview)
Weekly Push Scheduler
Push Insights
Pushes by Tag
Volume by tag per day
Delivery Success Rate
Success vs. failure per day