SHSelfHostIndex

Chadburn vs Supercronic

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted automation & workflows options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
CH Chadburn Job scheduler for Docker environments using container labels VS SU Supercronic Crontab-compatible job runner built for containers
FeatureChadburnSupercronic
Deploy effortUnder-an-hour setupUnder-an-hour setup
Health score57 · Fair86 · Excellent
CategoryAutomation & WorkflowsAutomation & Workflows
LicenseMITMIT
LanguageGoGo
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM32 MB32 MB
Deploymentdocker, binarydocker, binary
GitHub stars★ 78★ 2,651
First released20212017
Replacescroncron

What are Chadburn and Supercronic?

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

Supercronic

Supercronic is an open-source cron job runner that is crontab compatible and designed specifically to run inside containers. It is self-hosted to schedule periodic tasks with proper logging and signal handling.

  • Crontab compatible
  • Container friendly
  • Proper logging
  • Lightweight single binary

Chadburn vs Supercronic: key differences

Both projects are written in Go. Supercronic is the more established project (first released 2017), while Chadburn arrived in 2021. Supercronic has the considerably larger community, at 2,651 GitHub stars versus 78.

Why pick each one

Choose Chadburn if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Written in Go
Chadburn details

Choose Supercronic if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Active community (2.7k GitHub stars)
Supercronic details

Frequently asked questions

Is Chadburn or Supercronic better?

Neither is universally better. Supercronic has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Chadburn and Supercronic free and open-source?

Yes. Chadburn is licensed under MIT and Supercronic under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Chadburn and Supercronic with Docker?

Chadburn: yes. Supercronic: yes.

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