Staxly

Appwrite vs Novu

Open-source BaaS for building full-stack apps
vs. Open-source notification infrastructure — workflows across email, SMS, push, chat, in-app

Appwrite websiteNovu website

Pricing tiers

Appwrite

Self-Hosted
Run Appwrite on your own infrastructure. MIT licensed — no usage limits.
$0 base (usage-based)
Cloud Free
Managed cloud. Hard caps: 1 team member, 1 database per project.
Free
Cloud Pro
From $15/member/month. 2 TB bandwidth, 150 GB storage, 200k MAU, 3.5M executions, unlimited databases + team members.
$15/mo
Cloud Scale
$599/month flat for the org. Higher included usage + advanced security. Deprecated in some regions — check.
$599/mo
Enterprise
Custom pricing. SOC 2, HIPAA (on request), dedicated infra, SLAs.
Custom
Appwrite website

Novu

Free
10K workflow runs/mo. All channels. 20 workflows, 2 environments, 3 team members, 24h retention.
Free
Self-hosted (OSS)
Open source (MIT). Run locally or on own infrastructure. No usage limits.
$0 base (usage-based)
Pro
From $30/mo. 30K+ runs, 7-day retention, branding removal, advanced email editor.
$30/mo
Team
From $250/mo. 250K+ runs, 10 envs, 90-day retention, RBAC, 600 RPS.
$250/mo
Enterprise
Custom. 10M+ runs, HIPAA BAA, SSO/OIDC, data residency (SG/UK/AU/JP/KR), self-hosted/VPC.
Custom
Novu website

Free-tier quotas head-to-head

Comparing free on Appwrite vs free on Novu.

MetricAppwriteNovu
bandwidth gb month5 GB/month
databases per project1 databases
function duration s30 seconds
function executions750000 exec/month
mau75000 users/month
retention1 days
storage gb2 GB
team members1 members
workflow runs monthly10000 runs/mo
workflows20 workflows

Features

Appwrite · 13 features

  • Account (Auth)User authentication: email/password, magic URLs, phone OTP, anonymous, 30+ OAuth
  • AvatarsGenerated avatars, country flags, credit-card icons, QR codes, favicons.
  • DatabasesNoSQL collections with attribute types, indexes, permissions per document/collec
  • Events SystemUnified event bus: subscribe in Functions, Webhooks, Realtime using event string
  • FunctionsServerless functions in 13+ runtimes (Node, Python, Go, Ruby, PHP, Dart, Deno, S
  • MessagingMulti-channel messaging: Push (FCM/APNs), SMS (Twilio/Vonage/Msg91), Email (Mail
  • MigrationsImport from Firebase, Supabase, NHost, or another Appwrite project.
  • Permissions (ACLs)Per-document / per-collection ACLs: Role.user(), Role.team(), Role.any(), Role.g
  • RealtimeWebSocket subscriptions to events: database changes, auth, storage, function exe
  • SitesDeploy static and SSR frameworks (Next, Nuxt, SvelteKit, Astro, Remix) direct fr
  • StorageFile buckets with access control, auto-transforms (image preview), antivirus, en
  • TeamsGroup users with shared access + roles. Used for row-level permissions on resour
  • WebhooksHTTP callbacks on any Appwrite event. Signed with x-appwrite-webhook-signature.

Novu · 15 features

  • Activity FeedMessage-by-message delivery timeline.
  • ChatSlack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, Mattermost, WhatsApp, WeChat.
  • EmailSendGrid, Postmark, Mailgun, AWS SES, Resend, SMTP, Plunk, Mailjet, Sparkpost, M
  • InboxReact/Next/Vue/Angular in-app Inbox component.
  • LayoutsReusable email layouts with template nesting.
  • Multi-tenancyPer-tenant branding, templates, preferences.
  • Novu FrameworkCode-first workflow DSL (TypeScript) colocated with app code.
  • PreferencesPer-subscriber + global notification preferences.
  • PushAPNs, FCM, Expo, OneSignal, Pushpad, Pusher.
  • Self-hostingDocker Compose / Kubernetes deployment of full stack.
  • SMSTwilio, MessageBird, Plivo, Nexmo, Termii, Sendchamp, Africa's Talking, Kannel,
  • SubscribersSubscriber profiles with channels, preferences, topics.
  • TopicsPub/sub style subscribe many users to a topic.
  • Translationsi18n support for templates.
  • WorkflowsCode-first or visual notification workflows with steps, branches, delays.

Developer interfaces

KindAppwriteNovu
CLIAppwrite CLINovu CLI
SDKAndroid SDK (Kotlin), Apple SDK (Swift), Dart Server SDK, Deno SDK, Flutter SDK, Kotlin Server SDK, .NET Server SDK, Node.js Server SDK, PHP Server SDK, Python Server SDK, React Native SDK, Ruby Server SDK, Swift Server SDK, Web SDK (browser)go-novu, @novu/api, @novu/framework, novu-java, novu-kotlin, novu-php, novu (Python), @novu/react (Inbox), novu-ruby
RESTREST APINovu REST API
GRAPHQLGraphQL API
MCPAppwrite MCP Server
OTHERRealtime WebSocketOutbound Webhooks, Self-hosted (Docker)
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Some links to Appwrite and Novu may be affiliate links — Staxly may earn a commission if you sign up through them, at no extra cost to you. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.

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