// the find
easychen/pushdeer
开放源码的无App推送服务，iOS14+扫码即用。亦支持快应用/iOS和Mac客户端、Android客户端、自制设备
PushDeer is a self-hostable push notification service that lets you send messages to iOS/macOS/Android devices via a simple HTTP call, with no app required on iOS using App Clips. It's aimed at developers and power users who want Pushover/Bark-style notifications without depending on a third-party service. The project is now explicitly abandoned — the README leads with a deprecation notice.
The App Clip approach is genuinely clever: iOS users can receive push notifications without installing anything, which removes the biggest friction point for this category of tool. Docker Compose self-hosting works out of the box with a single command. The API is dead simple — one URL with a pushkey parameter gets you a notification. The IoT angle (DeerESP on ESP8266/ESP32) is a nice extension that most similar projects don't bother with.
The project is unmaintained by its own admission — the Android backend lost API access, core contributors left, and no new features are planned. Push certificates for self-hosted installs expire annually and require manual renewal, which is a silent failure mode waiting to happen. The codebase mixes PHP (Laravel API), Swift, Kotlin, and C in ways that make meaningful contribution difficult. There's no webhook retry logic or delivery guarantee documented anywhere, so you have no idea if a message actually arrived.