[jabroni_salad]

If you want to host your own stoat server, you will also need to recompile the apps to use your URL and distribute them to your friends, and they will not be compatible for any other server.

[unethical_ban]

Yes, I learned in the Zulip promo discussion earlier this week that self-hosted push notification servers have to have certs compiled directly into the app. I can't tell if it's malice, indifference or incompetence to have that design; any answer is completely believable.

Is there an architectural opportunity to build a "Self-hosted push notification" app and business, where the push broker builds an app to deploy to play, then the self-hosted apps build trust with the broker. The broker app sends push notifications to the user device, which can inform them of the message sent and open arbitrary app windows?

[jabroni_salad]

This topic comes up with firebase avoidance on degoogled phones. Have a look at unifiedpush.org and ntfy.sh

There's an implementation sample here: https://fluffy.chat/en/faq/#push_without_google_services