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I've just read alot about push notification servers, self-hosted ones as well as cloud. and I am pretty much confused about one aspect.

I need push notifications for my Android/iOS app for more than a million devices using the same app. now there is no free service for that scale and paid services will result in too much monthly fees, so I thought about running my own server with an open source solution. I've checked Many but parse seems to be the best fit. but they say that it uses FCM and I know from google pricing that it is free only for a limited number of registered devices. I thought that hosting my own push server would spare me those fees; but it seems like not; what good is it then ? wouldnt it be better to just use FCM directly ?

Xsmael
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    As shown on the [Firebase pricing page](https://firebase.google.com/pricing) Firebase Cloud Messaging is completely free. Where did you find that there is a limit on the number of devices that you can deliver messages through FCM to? – Frank van Puffelen Jul 10 '19 at 02:45
  • @FrankvanPuffelen I read it here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37961625/firebase-fcm-usage-limits – Xsmael Jul 10 '19 at 02:55
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    Nothing there talks about pricing, and all the limits mentioned are about what can be done in a single API call, or for a single device. – Frank van Puffelen Jul 10 '19 at 03:04
  • You are right; my bad; I understood wrongly – Xsmael Jul 10 '19 at 03:07

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Delivering push notifications to Android (with Google Play Services) and iOS will always use FCM or APNS respectively. The reason is that those services are built into the operating system, or built closer to the operating system than regular application can function and get reliability and battery life advantages from that. Both FCM and APNS are completely free and unlimited, although both have quota to protect the services against abuse.

There are many services (such as Parse Push, Airship, OneSignal, etc) that build on top of FCM and APNS to provide higher level messaging operations. But at a lower level these will be using APNS and FCM for the actual delivery of the messages.

That's also what you have to think of when you considering building your own server: what will that server actually do to deliver the messages to the devices? If you're not using FCM/APNS, how do you get the message to the device, especially when the user is not actively using the app?

Frank van Puffelen
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  • Alright now I understand better, so these services (such as Parse Push, Airship, OneSignal, etc) are solely used for addev value or advenced features ? and not bypassing FCM. – Xsmael Jul 10 '19 at 02:58
  • but there is already Google analytics for statistics, is there any advantage of running for examble my Own Instance of Parse (that'll use FCM of course) than using FCM directly with google's monitoring tools – Xsmael Jul 10 '19 at 03:02
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    There probably are advantages and disadvantages to both, otherwise it seems unlikely that someone (who I hold in quite high esteem) would've built Parse Push, or vice versa that anyone would *not* use it. It all depends on your use-case and your needs, which is why recommending you to use one or the other is off topic on Stack Overflow. I'd recommend you try out what sounds most appealing to you, and report back if you have problems getting it to work. – Frank van Puffelen Jul 10 '19 at 03:06