According to the release:
Adds experimental PostgreSQL support
The code was written by Cursor and Claude
14,997 added lines of code, and 10,202 lines removed
reviewed and heavily tested over 2-3 weeks
This makes me a bit uneasy, especially as ntfy is an internet facing service.
Am I overreacting or do you all share the same concern?
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ts getting you pinned to 2.17 in the compose file 🥹🤞🥀
Sigh. Time to switch to gotify
been using EMQX plus an MQTT client on my phone for a few months now, I like it better than gotify since the app was chewing through my battery like a vampire.
it might be better now since my issues happened three-ish years ago.
we’re all so fucked
It looks like that tool is more or less built by a single developer (you already trust their judgment anyways!), and even though the code came through in a single PR it was a merge from a branch that had 79 separate commits: https://github.com/binwiederhier/ntfy/pull/1619
Also glancing through it a bit, huge portions of that are straightforward refactors or even just formatting changes caused by adding a new backend option.
I’m not going to say it’s fine, but they didn’t just throw Claude at a problem and let it rewrite 25k lines of code unnecessarily.
Any AI usage immediately discredits the software for me, because it calls into question all of their past and future work.
Oh boy, do I have bad news about 90% of the internet for you…
Linus sent an email recently to the Kernel Mailing List trashing AI slop and rejecting AI generated patches. The fact that he used it to play around with a script doesn’t invalidate the fact that he distrusts code written by LLMs when it actually matters.
you mean this statement? https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/08/linus_versus_llms_ai_slop_docs/?td=rt-3a
If yes, your statement does not really match what Linus said.
Something like https://graphite.com/ to create stacked PRs that are reviewable probably would have helped. Can be replicated with local LLMs or remote AI providers with locally configured agentic workflows. Never used graphite personally, but I’ve seen some open source maintainers use it to split up large PRs.
Wow a differentiated opinion on AI use :)
I’m a developer
I sometimes sometimes use AI for an answer to a complicated problem because normally I’d open up 20 pages , have to go through them all to find the right answer
AI gets me the answer right away, though it likely is completely wrong or at least partially wrong. Either way, it gives me a general direction and with that I only have to search through one or two pages to confirm, so the same process is just a little faster.
I laso have used AI on a couple of occasions to ask it to write code for a complicated problem. Again, you don’t copy the code, god no, it’s always the worst, and it is in 80% of the cases still at least riddled with bugs, or just complete bullshit. However, it might give me an alternative idea or a direction to take to implement or fix this complicated feature problem.
That’s the extent to which I’ve used AI and for the foreseeable future that won’t change because AI still can’t code. It’s still wildly flailing around and it might produce something that implements a certain functionality, but it’s a guarantee that that functionality will have more bugs and security holes than features
I understand this comment. AI sometimes saves a ton of mental power and time when I’m stuck on an issue. It can give some really good suggestions. Also, AI is a godsend for frontend shit. I don’t care what y’all say, I’m never touching CSS and HTML ever again. lmao.
I am also a developer and agree entirely.
Asking for advice, examples or the occasional boilerplate is at most how I use AI and certainly not integrated directly into my IDE.
What’s the difference between ntfy (android app) and ntfy.sh?
Ntfy.sh is the hosted version. Hosted by the author. Ntfy (android, ios) is the app that you use as a client.
I’ve never used ntfy.sh
I’ve only used Ntfy app for Universal Push that some apps need, and they recommend ntfy. Does this affect the app then? Ah, if so, what alternative can I use for just that purpose?
Gotify is probably the next best thing, at least in terms of self hosted. Though doesn’t have the wide support of ntfy.
@ueiqkkwhuwjw just this quote at the start of the release notes
> 14,997 added lines of code, and 10,202 lines removed, all from one pull request
This is already a major red flag even without the ai stuff right? Can’t believe anyone would flaunt that like this.
Look, if he wanted to introduce AI code, whatever, but doing it all at once in a 14k line change (biggest release ever by his words) is crazy.
I’m assuming this is some sort of canary message to indicate that the code base has been compromised, the author can’t talk about it, and everyone should immediately stop using the service. Surely no-one would be unwise enough to commit this otherwise?
Even ignoring the huge red LLM flag, a 25kLOC delta in a single PR should be cause for instant rejection as there’s no way to fully understand or test it, let alone in 2-3 weeks.
25kLOC delta in a single PR should be cause for instant rejection
Not to pick at nits, but it would be VERY different if it was 1k lines added and 24k lines removed. There’s something extremely satisfying about removing 10k+ lines of unnecessary code.
Sure, that would be a little different, but unless you could make a convincing argument, backed up with a solid set of unit tests, at the least, as to why and how you were able to remove that much code whilst only adding a comparatively small amount, I’d still be inclined to reject it and ask for it to be broken down into smaller units.
Now, that explaination might be something along the lines of it being dead code that is not called from anywhere, or even that it was a patched version of an upstream library, and the patch is now included in that upstream, in which case, fair enough, good work, and thanks very much. As a rewrite or refactor though, it’s too big to sensibly review and needs breaking down into separate features.
Absolutely, the author needs to be able to reason about their changes, no matter what. However, the reason why I think the two situations are fundamentally different, though, is that it’s a lot easier to validate the existence of features than it is the non-existence of bugs or malicious behavior. The biggest risk to removing code is breaking preexisting features, whereas the biggest risk to adding code is introducing malicious behavior.
They are not even trusting it themselves. This is from the release notes
I’ll not instantly switch ntfy.sh over. Instead, I’m kindly asking the community to test the Postgres support and report back to me if things are working
Fuck that.
Classic “test in production” strategy, very solid!
Consider a donation to help people providing you the open source software you seem to depend upon.
Usage of a helper tool to perform tasks on code whether it is AI or the IDE internal features can reduce the work load of benevolent developers who has not asked you to use their softwares.
Maybe the language was not appropriate but get real. With the little revenue generated by the usage of people complaining, the use of AI agentic coding might be the only way to being features without pushing benevolent devs to burnout.
Test in production is the best. We spent months warning from data bugs and nobody bat an eye (upstream bug, not our responsibility but we noticed) When it was d launched in prod we just pointed out the bug that nobody fixed was still there and immediately a war room was formed and the bug fixed within an hour.
It honestly seems more efficient to let shit hit the fan than to fight everybody to do their job.
Testing in production is the most idiotic last 10 years or so concept, which is mainly driven by incompetence of project managers.
Imagine if you get sold a car by a company, for 100k, then it start having major issues and the car company tell you: “we’ll fix it”.
While that does not necessarily apply to software or services or webapps, the logic still stands. You are selling bugs to people. Bugs that could have been cought, with some risk management and planning.
You’re implying a shitty capitalist company that nobody cares for if it burns down. A tool like this though that is self-hosted by a lot of people (29.1k stars on GH!) and that is internet-facing is very different.
Then, let’s just call it “massive decentralized surprise testing”
For sure, the song of the hero who fixed the production bug is oft sang at meetings but the loser who prevented the bug to begin with gets no credit.
Hmm, no, I think I’ll just uninstall.
Fuck, I love ntfy, it’s one of the best self hosted push notification systems I’ve used. It has been flawless so far.
Don’t like this.
there is this repo that lists some slopware : https://codeberg.org/small-hack/open-slopware maybe someone can add it
the linux kernel is on that list, bro it’s time to switch!
Also Chrome, Firefox ans Ladybird!
I think there’s room for a little bit of nuance that page doesn’t do a great job of describing. In my opinion there’s a huge difference between volunteer maintainers using AI PR checks as a screening measure to ease their review burden and focusing their actual reviews on PRs that pass the AI checks, and AI-deranged lone developers flooding the code with “AI features” and slopping out 10kloc PRs for no obvious reason.
Just because a project is using AI code reviews or has an AGENTS.md is not necessarily a red flag. A yellow flag, maybe, but the evidence that the Linux Kernel itself is on that list should serve as an example of why you can’t just kneejerk anti-AI here. If you know anything about Linus Torvalds you know he has zero tolerance for bad code, and the use of AI is not going to change that despite everyone’s fears. If it doesn’t work out, Linus will be the first one to throw it under the bus.
Lol my project has an AGENTS.md and its contents are basically, “Don’t use AI agents on this codebase.”
Upvote this guy
did not know that the serde developer tolnay is a military apologist. I’m disgusted. serde is a very good tool… I’ll think about what to do about this. such a shame…
Awesome page, thanks. Have bookmarked.
Harfbuzz though? That’s going to take some replacing. Hopefully someone will fork an earlier version. The thing that it does (accurate multi-script font shaping) is difficult to do; requires a lot of rule-of-thumb knowledge that’s unlikely to be possessed by a single person, needs a lot of collaboration.
Uh. I’d really prefer if people experimented with new technology a bit more cautiously and not directly jump to “the biggest release […] ever done”.
Upvote and comment on: https://github.com/binwiederhier/ntfy/issues/1645
They just replied:
What gave you the idea that this was a full rewrite? I moved things around with AI and added postgres support for the queries. Nobody has ever reviewed and tested anything more thoroughly than I did with this branch.
You are twisting what it actually is. You are assuming something that is not true.
This makes me think that they didn’t review or test it at all, lmao
This is the biggest release I’ve ever done on the server. It’s 14,997 added lines of code, and 10,202 lines removed
Thanks for the link! As a short aside for the other people here: Try not to spam developers. That usually achieves the opposite and makes them miserable, when we want them to not burn out, and write good software for us. A thumbs-up emoji is the correct reaction for the average person. Or for the pros - a code-review highlighting specific issues within the code.
Oh goddamn it, I’m using this and don’t have an alternative lined up
If using ntfy for UnifiedPush: https://unifiedpush.org/users/distributors/
What is your concern? If it’s a generic “AI”, then I can assure you tha pretty much every software has AI code in it already. Heck, Linus is accepting PRs where AI has been used.
AI is useful. It produces useful code.
Like creative writing, it won’t produce something novel. But man, 75% of code is just boiler plate. AI can do a lot.
That does not absolve anyone of committing crap code. Put your name to it. Own it. Take the consequence of delivering shit code or great code, no matter how it was written. Don’t let AI be a crutch. But you’d be god damn fooling not to use it, where it’s right.
Massive changes made by robit in what has been a pretty stable utility for years is (obviously?) my main concern. It’s absolutely a crutch, and seeing a dev lean on it like this gives me the same feeling Coach must’ve got seeing his star player limping into the big game on a real one. If dude wants to check out and let the machine run his project fine, but I’ll be looking for something someone still cares about and works on.
I think you’d be a fool to use it. At this point it’s subsidized by their need for training data/desire to manufacture dependency, but that won’t be the case for long. It’s expensive, detrimental to your skills, and damaging to both our planet and society. It centralizes and gatekeeps access to information, the most powerful resource of all. “Treat it like an inexperienced dev” managers say, while it replaces their opportunities to gain experience. How are they supposed to even tell great code from shit when everything they’re exposed to has been run through the averaging machine?
I saved your comment for the added arguments against AI.
There’s a big difference between “AI was used in some capacity” and “Entirely vibe coded”
Of course. And when I hear “vibe coded”, I hear someone starting with “make me a cool app” and going from there, with zero understanding of the technical architecture.
If you have a thorough, deeply thought through technical spec, then AI can write a great amount of tests up against that spec, say, and you’ve got a fantastic base for TDD.
I honestly feel like a lot of the downvotes are people thinking AI means “clueless programmer having an AI do its work for you”. Many highly productive, deeply technical developers use it every day.
Idk man by the sounds of it, the AI implemented the entire back end change, adding 14k lines of generated code. The dev doesn’t even seem confident with his own testing. Sounds like it’s closer to the vibe-coded end of the scale to me.
Uovote and comment on: https://github.com/binwiederhier/ntfy/issues/1645
Please add this to the post.
