Crontab UI vs go-crond
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 | go-crond |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 83 · Excellent | 5 · At risk |
| 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 | ★ 143 |
| First released | 2016 | 2017 |
| Replaces | cron | cron |
What are Crontab UI and go-crond?
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
go-crond
go-crond is a small cron daemon written in Go that runs scheduled jobs from crontab-style files, designed for use inside containers and minimal environments. It is self-hosted as a single binary.
- Container-friendly cron
- Single static binary
- Crontab-compatible
- Run jobs as users
Crontab UI vs go-crond: key differences
Crontab UI is written in JavaScript, while go-crond is built with Go. Go-crond is the lighter option, starting around 32 MB of RAM against 128 MB for Crontab UI. Crontab UI has the considerably larger community, at 3,287 GitHub stars versus 143.
Why pick each one
Choose Crontab UI if…
- Safer than editing crontab
- Simple interface
Watch out for
- Single-host scope
- Basic scheduling only
Choose go-crond 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 go-crond 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 go-crond free and open-source?
Yes. Crontab UI is licensed under MIT and go-crond under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Crontab UI and go-crond with Docker?
Crontab UI: yes. go-crond: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Crontab UI or go-crond?
go-crond 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.