When I started thinking about real-time alerts for my SaaS, my first instinct was Slack. Familiar, used it in previous jobs, wanted everything centralized. Case closed.
Then someone reframed it: the right tool depends on the action the alert should trigger, not on familiarity.
Urgent events like payment failures, production errors, and API abuse need to reach you fast. Telegram wins here: instant, personal, no overhead.
Operating history like signups, plan changes, and usage summaries benefit from search and structure. Slack wins as a lightweight company log.
The rule I'm keeping: if you can't name the action you'll take after receiving the notification, it shouldn't be real-time.
Most things don't need to interrupt you. A daily digest teaches more than 20 individual pings throughout the day.
Still setting this up for my own SaaS, but the mental model is clear now.
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