Why palumb
There are good notification tools already. palumb is opinionated about a specific combination that the others make you choose between.
The wedge: EU-sovereign and managed and durable and code-first
Section titled “The wedge: EU-sovereign and managed and durable and code-first”Each of these exists somewhere. palumb’s bet is that for a class of EU teams, you should not have to give any of them up:
| You want… | The usual trade-off | palumb |
|---|---|---|
| Notification logic in code you own and review | Low-code builders own the logic; you adapt to them | Workflows are plain TypeScript you deploy |
| Durability (no lost or doubled sends) | Roll it yourself with queues, retries, idempotency keys | Built in — workflows run on a durable runtime |
| A managed service (you don’t operate it) | Self-hosting the durable runtime is on you | palumb runs the control plane and the runtime |
| Data that stays in the EU | Most managed options are US-centric | EU-sovereign by design |
Versus building it yourself
Section titled “Versus building it yourself”You can build this: a queue, a worker, retry and idempotency logic, a place to store provider credentials, a subscriber/topic model, and a batching mechanism for digests. Most teams do — and then spend the next year on the edge cases (what happens on a crash mid-send, how to not email someone twice, how to wait an hour without holding a worker open).
palumb is that machinery as a product. You keep the part that is genuinely yours — what to send and when — and drop the part that is the same for everyone.
Versus a generic notification API
Section titled “Versus a generic notification API”A plain “send” API solves the single send. It does not give you durable workflows: waiting, batching, branching, and surviving failure are still your problem. palumb’s unit is the workflow, not the message, and the runtime underneath it is durable — that is the difference that shows up in production, not in the demo.
When palumb is not the right fit
Section titled “When palumb is not the right fit”- Notifications authored by non-developers. palumb is code-first on purpose. If marketing needs to edit flows in a UI, this is the wrong shape.
- You’re already deep in another managed stack and EU residency doesn’t matter to you. The sovereignty wedge is a real part of the value; without it the case is thinner.
Being explicit about the boundary is the point — palumb does one shape of the problem very well rather than every shape adequately.
- How it works — the mechanics behind these claims.
- Architecture — the system in detail.