Supercronic is a crontab-compatible job runner designed for container environments.
It addresses common problems with traditional cron implementations inside containers by preserving environment variables for jobs, writing job output directly to standard output and standard error, and handling process signals in a container-friendly way. The software is intended for developers and operators who want predictable scheduled task execution in Docker and similar platforms without relying on a full system cron daemon.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Designed specifically to run cron jobs inside containers.
- Uses standard crontab syntax and is broadly compatible with Vixie cron.
- Makes environment variables available to scheduled jobs.
- Logs job output, schedules, and return codes to stdout and stderr.
- Supports graceful shutdown on SIGTERM, SIGINT, and SIGQUIT.
- Can gracefully shut down and reload crontab configuration on SIGUSR2.
- Supports second-resolution schedules.
- Offers pre-built binaries and can also be built from source.
- Supports timezone configuration including CRON_TZ.
- Does not support changing users via USER entries in crontabs.
Website: github.com/aptible/supercronic
Support:
Developer: Aptible
License: MIT License
Supercronic is written in Go. Learn Go with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Alternatives to cron | |
|---|---|
| cronie | Modern day version of cron and associated tools |
| fcron | Designed for systems which are not continuously running or regularly |
| systemd | Suite of basic building blocks for a Linux system |
| mcron | 100% compatible replacement for Vixie cron |
| anacron | Designed for systems which are not continuously running |
| Jobber | Run commands to a schedule |
| bcron | Designed with secure operations in mind |
| Cronicle | Multi-server task scheduler and runner |
| Supercronic | Crontab-compatible job runner designed for container environments |
| runcron | Minimal cron alternative for automated and container-friendly environments |
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