Ergo vs ntfy
| Tagline | Modern IRCv3 server in Go combining ircd, services framework, and bouncer | Simple HTTP-based push notifications to phone and desktop, no account needed |
| Category | Team Chat & Collaboration | Team Chat & Collaboration |
| Replaces | Slack, Discord | Slack, Microsoft Teams |
| GitHub stars | 3.2k | 31k |
| Language | Go | Go |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Self-host difficulty | 3/5 Moderate | 2/5 Easy |
| Deploy options | Docker Manual | Docker Docker Compose Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 7 days ago | yesterday |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
Ergo
- IRC protocol only; no voice, video, reactions, or rich embeds expected by modern chat users.
- No web client included; users need a separate IRC client (WeeChat, HexChat, etc.) or an IRC-to-web bridge.
- Message history is limited and not searchable at scale compared to Slack's enterprise search.
- No integrations with productivity tools (calendars, task managers, CI/CD) without external bridges.
ntfy
- No team chat, threading, or message history browsing; designed for one-way push alerts only.
- No rich message formatting, file sharing, or reactions.
- Rate limiting and attachment storage on the free public server are intentionally restrictive.
- iOS push requires routing through ntfy's own APNs proxy unless you self-compile the app.
Bottom line
Choose ntfy if you want the lower-effort setup; choose ntfy for the larger community and ecosystem. ntfy has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.