Short answer is that yes, there are other options. But they're always vastly more complex and would require actual work to use. Why bother with all that when I can just issue a GET or POST to a simple HTTP endpoint (no auth/headers required) and have IFTTT fill in the title, message, link (if the notification is tapped), and image with the values in the uploaded JSON object? The IFTTT API is truly a joy to use as a someone trying to quickly hack something together using cURL.

Re Pushbullet specifically: it no longer supports iOS but either way, it's also much more complex [0] to use.

[0]: https://docs.pushbullet.com/#create-push