Notifications on our mobile devices are one of the most essential things in our day to day life. They provide us with helpful, useful, and at times critical information. Notifications have been around since the time the computers sprang up, but it’s only been recent that mobile devices have given rise to a huge platform for apps.
Now, these apps want to get through to you, be they messaging apps, social media apps, or simply gaming apps nudging you to play the next level. With the web becoming more modern with the passing day, websites also want to send you notifications. That is where apps like Pushover and Pushbullet come into play. These apps provide all the notifications across all your devices.
However, when setting up such a notification system we ought to be able to understand which option is the best for us. Let’s look at the features of both Pushover and Pushbullet.
Pushover Vs Pushbullet
1. Notification Speed
This is a real point of contention between the two. Both tout as being the best notifications platform in the market. But notification is only as good with how good it is in the notification speed. Pushover sends in a much faster notification and much more instantaneously. Pushbullet, however, can be dodgy at times but generally, it delivers notifications in time too. Pushover has a single hub for notifications in the app, once the popup notifications have been dismissed. This allows for easier access to notifications. Although Pushbullet has the same feature, it is slightly cluttered in comparison.
2. Compatibility
Pushover is known in the market for its compatibility across a range of platforms and spaces. Of course, it can deliver notifications from the regular suspects like Macs, PCs, Androids, and iOS devices. Furthermore, it can deliver notifications from compatible smart home devices as well use a variety of services like Zapier, Botize, CommandPost, and IFTTT among many others. This gives it the edge it needs over many other similar platforms.
Pushbullet on the other hand is neck and neck with Pushover since its strong API integration allows developers to set up notifications from websites, smart home devices, and computer devices for regular use. It, however, does not immediately have the strong support that Pushover currently has, but it still is strong in compatibility.
3. IFTTT Support
IFTTT is probably one of the most revolutionary apps that allows for much more automatization than what is usually possible on many devices. It literally translates to the computer coding term “if this then that” which allows for a number of possibilities for a person. Pushover is currently the official partner with IFTTT and has its own applet available on it. This allows the user limitless opportunities to customize the notifications to whichever way they want, on top of the already great native customization. With Pushbullet, there isn’t any official partnership available, however, it also works with IFTTT meaning that much more customization options, but not as much a Pushover.
4. Features
Pushover is a very feature rich app, but that is if you only count its main aspect, that is its ability to relay notifications across devices. But that’s pretty much all it can do, and no doubt that it can do them well, it is scant in its feature list compared to Pushbullet. Pushbullet can obviously send over notifications across devices, but it can also do more. It can send text notes, addresses, lists, links, and files of a limited size with the blink of an eye. This makes a lot of day to day tasks quite easy for the user and considering that Pushbullet offers so much apart from a great experience of notifications, one is sorely tempted to give it a try in place of Pushover.
5. Pricing
There is a difference in how each services’ pricing is planned out. Pushover has a try and buys model, while Pushbullet gives the pro and free options. Pushover can be used free for 7 days but would require a one-time fee of $5 to continue using for individuals, or small groups. However, Pushbullet’s model is different. It aims at individuals with a free option whereas businesses can buy the pro option with a monthly or a yearly subscription.
Verdict
It’s very hard to decide between the two. It is entirely up to the needs of the individual or the business to decide what features are useful for them and then decides which pricing model suits them the best.