Ofelia vs Supercronic
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted automation & workflows options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Ofelia | Supercronic |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 86 · Excellent | 86 · Excellent |
| Category | Automation & Workflows | Automation & Workflows |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 32 MB | 32 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 3,996 | ★ 2,651 |
| First released | 2016 | 2017 |
| Replaces | cron | cron |
What are Ofelia and Supercronic?
Ofelia
Ofelia is a modern, lightweight job scheduler for Docker environments, intended as a replacement for cron. It can run jobs inside containers, in new containers or on the host on a schedule.
- Cron replacement for Docker
- Run jobs in existing or new containers
- Configuration via labels or INI
- Slack and email notifications
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
Ofelia vs Supercronic: key differences
Both projects are written in Go.
Why pick each one
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)
Frequently asked questions
Is Ofelia or Supercronic better?
Neither is universally better. Ofelia has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Ofelia and Supercronic free and open-source?
Yes. Ofelia is licensed under MIT and Supercronic under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Ofelia and Supercronic with Docker?
Ofelia: yes. Supercronic: yes.