Crontab UI vs Chadburn
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted automation & workflows options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Crontab UI | Chadburn |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 83 · Excellent | 57 · Fair |
| Category | Automation & Workflows | Automation & Workflows |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | JavaScript | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 32 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 3,287 | ★ 78 |
| First released | 2016 | 2021 |
| Replaces | cron | cron |
What are Crontab UI and Chadburn?
Crontab UI
Crontab UI is a web application that makes managing the system crontab safe and easy, offering job editing, logging, backups, and import or export. It removes the risk of hand-editing crontab files.
- Visual crontab editing
- Job execution logs
- Backup and restore
- Import and export jobs
Chadburn
Chadburn is a job scheduler inspired by Ofelia that runs scheduled tasks defined as Docker labels or in an INI file, designed for container environments. It is self-hosted as a single lightweight binary.
- Docker-label job scheduling
- INI file config
- Container-native
- Lightweight binary
Crontab UI vs Chadburn: key differences
Crontab UI is written in JavaScript, while Chadburn is built with Go. Chadburn is the lighter option, starting around 32 MB of RAM against 128 MB for Crontab UI. Crontab UI is the more established project (first released 2016), while Chadburn arrived in 2021. Crontab UI has the considerably larger community, at 3,287 GitHub stars versus 78.
Why pick each one
Choose Crontab UI if…
- Safer than editing crontab
- Simple interface
Watch out for
- Single-host scope
- Basic scheduling only
Choose Chadburn if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in Go
Frequently asked questions
Is Crontab UI or Chadburn better?
Neither is universally better. Crontab UI has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Crontab UI and Chadburn free and open-source?
Yes. Crontab UI is licensed under MIT and Chadburn under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Crontab UI and Chadburn with Docker?
Crontab UI: yes. Chadburn: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Crontab UI or Chadburn?
Chadburn has the smaller minimum footprint at 32 MB of RAM, compared to about 128 MB for Crontab UI. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.