It appears that there are four different 3rd party plugins to accomplish local notifications listed within phonegap build:
https://github.com/GotCakes/Phonegap-LocalNotification/
https://github.com/javamrright/cordova-plugin-local-notifications/
https://github.com/simplec-dev/LocalNotification/
https://github.com/katzer/cordova-plugin-local-notifications/
(from https://build.phonegap.com/plugins)
I've been using the last of the four (de.appplant.cordova.plugin.local-notification) but I'm curious to know (1) whether one of the other packages is the preferred solution and (2) why are there four independent projects within phonegap/cordova to accomplish the same task...?
This seems to be one of the most active (check contributors/forks etc...): https://github.com/katzer/cordova-plugin-local-notifications
Just tested it myself (Android for now) and it works good.
There are different versions/packages of this extension because for the most part, development of Cordova plugins are an open-source affair. Developers far and wide each have their own ideas and best-practice-know-hows on how plugins should work.