Bark-server is a self-hosted backend for push notifications to iOS devices.
The project solves the problem of sending custom notifications to iPhones without relying on third-party notification services. It works by providing a server that receives notification requests and delivers them to the Bark iOS app. Users can push notifications to their devices by making requests to the server, which stores data locally and forwards messages to connected clients.
The tool suits developers and users who want full control over their notification infrastructure and prefer not to depend on external push notification services. It works well for personal use, self-hosted deployments, and scenarios where privacy or independence from cloud providers matters. The project offers flexibility in deployment: it can run via Docker with precompiled images available, as a standalone binary on any system, or compiled from source. For data storage, it defaults to Bbolt but supports MySQL as an alternative backend, allowing users to choose based on their infrastructure preferences.
Development activity shows consistent maintenance with regular updates to the codebase. The project includes comprehensive documentation covering API specifications and additional protocols. Docker automation is configured for building and publishing images. The tool is actively developed with support for modern Go versions and includes build tooling via task automation.
