How to send push notification to web browser?

Question

I have been reading for past few hours about Push Notification API and Web Notification API. I also discovered that Google & Apple gives push notification service for free via GCM and APNS respectively.

I am trying to understand if we can implement push notification to browsers using Desktop Notification, which I believe is what Web Notification API does. I saw a google documentation on how this can be done for Chrome here & here.

Now what am still not able to understand is:

1. Can we use GCM/APNS to send push notification to all Web Browsers including Firefox & Safari?
2. If not via GCM can we have our own back-end to do the same?

I believe all these answered in one answer can help a lot of people who are having similar confusions.

Answer 1

So here I am answering my own question. I have got answers to all my queries from people who have build push notification services in the past.

Update (May 2018): Here is a comprehensive and a very well written doc on web push notification from Google.

Answer to the original questions asked 3 years ago:

1. Can we use GCM/APNS to send push notification to all Web Browsers including Firefox & Safari?

Answer: Google has deprecated GCM as of April 2018. You can now use Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM). This supports all platforms including web browsers.

2. If not via GCM can we have our own back-end to do the same?

Answer: Yes, push notification can be sent from our own back-end. Support for the same has come to all major browsers.

Check this codelab from Google to better understand the implementation.

Some Tutorials:

• Implementing push notification in Django Here.
• Using flask to send push notification Here & Here.
• Sending push notifcaiton from Nodejs Here
• Sending push notification using php Here & Here
• Sending push notification from Wordpress. Here & Here
• Sending push notification from Drupal. Here

Implementing own backend in various programming languages.:

• NodeJs.
• PHP
• Rails
• Python
• Go Lang - this and this

Further Readings: - - Documentation from Firefox website can be read here. - A very good overview of Web Push by Google can be found here. - An FAQ answering most common confusions and questions.

Are there any free services to do the same? There are some companies that provide a similar solution in free, freemium and paid models. Am listing few below:

1. https://onesignal.com/ (Free | Support all platforms)
2. https://firebase.google.com/products/cloud-messaging/ (Free)
3. https://clevertap.com/ (Has free plan)
4. https://goroost.com/

Note: When choosing a free service remember to read the TOS. Free services often work by collecting user data for various purposes including analytics.

Apart from that, you need to have HTTPS to send push notifications. However, you can get https freely via letsencrypt.org