In simple English
This tool turns an old Android phone into a text message server. You send a web request to your own server, and your phone sends out the text message. When someone replies to your phone, it forwards the reply back to your software. You need an Android phone, a spare device or a dedicated server, and some patience to configure multiple external services. It costs nothing in software licence fees, but you pay for your mobile carrier text message plan.
What it is
httpSMS is an open-source SMS gateway system consisting of a web dashboard, a Go API server, a CockroachDB (a SQL database that survives server crashes) database, and an Android application. It bridges web applications and cellular networks without requiring expensive commercial text messaging providers.
What it is good for
Solo builders and small businesses who want to send text message alerts, verifications, or customer notifications using an existing mobile phone plan instead of paying per-message commercial API fees.
- Uses your existing phone plan to send text messages, avoiding commercial per-message markup.
- Includes end-to-end encryption using AES-256 (a way to scramble data so only your devices can read it) so your server never sees message contents.
- Supports webhooks (automated notifications sent from one app to another when an event happens) to instantly forward incoming replies to your software.
- Requires complex setup involving Firebase, SMTP email, Cloudflare Turnstile, and custom database records.
- Depends on an Android phone remaining powered on, connected to the internet, and within cellular range.
- Uses the AGPL-3.0 licence, which requires you to share your source code if you modify the software and offer it as a hosted service.
Twilio SMS API
CockroachDB
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git clone https://github.com/NdoleStudio/httpsms.git cd httpsms cp web/.env.docker web/.env cp api/.env.docker api/.env docker compose up --build