Cronicle
Cron with a UI: schedules, run history, chaining, retries, and alerts - in one 512 MiB container.
One-click deploy, from $5/mo on a Miget plan.
#what is Cronicle?
Every team has the crontab nobody remembers writing, on the server nobody dares reboot. Cronicle replaces it with something visible: a web UI where jobs have schedules, logs, run history, timelines, retries, chaining, and alerts when things fail - the operational basics crontab never had.
This template runs single-server Cronicle in one container with two small volumes (job data and logs). No required variables - but the UI is public and ships with admin/admin, so changing that password is step one after deploy.
Jobs run inside the container via shell or HTTP plugins: apk add what your scripts need, or - the more platform-native pattern - use HTTP jobs to poke endpoints on your other apps in the project, turning Cronicle into the scheduler for your whole stack.
Upstream project: Cronicle
#what you get
- Web UI: schedules, live logs, run history, and a timeline view
- Retries, timeouts, chaining (run B after A), and concurrency limits
- Email and webhook alerts on failure
- Shell and HTTP request plugins out of the box
- Job data and logs on persistent volumes
- Single 512 MiB container - cron should not need a cluster
#topology
| Service | Role | Public |
|---|---|---|
| cronicle | scheduler + web UI (:5000) | yes - change admin/admin immediately |
#miget sizing
// this stack needs
512 MiB RAM · 2 GB disk · 1 service
Scheduling is nearly free; RAM is consumed by what your jobs do. Shell jobs that need real resources deserve their own app - drive them via HTTP jobs instead.
Hobby - recommended fit
$5/mo
1 vCPU · 512 MiB · 10 GiB disk
Headroom for your own apps: 1 GiB at $7/mo
Professional - production
$22/mo
1 vCPU · 2 GiB · 10 GiB disk
Dedicated resources, production SLOs - plan details
One Miget plan is a fixed pool of compute - the whole stack (managed databases included) deploys inside it, and anything left over runs your other apps. No per-service or per-seat math.
#vs. the managed service
What the hosted equivalents charge, against the flat Miget plan this stack fits on. Prices as of June 2026, sources linked.
| Service | Plan | Monthly | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cronicle on Miget ★ | 512 MiB plan | $5 | this whole stack, flat - no usage meters, and room left for your own apps |
| Cronitor | Business (pay-as-you-go) | ~$20 | $2/monitor - ~10 monitored jobs; monitoring only, does not run your jobs |
| Healthchecks.io | Business | ~$20 | 100 checks - again, monitoring; the scheduler is still on you |
There is no true SaaS twin: hosted products monitor crons, Cronicle runs and monitors them.
#vs. other PaaS
Estimated monthly cost of running this exact stack (512 MiB RAM, 2 GB disk, 1 container) elsewhere, from published June 2026 rates.
| Platform | Est. monthly | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Miget ★ | $5 flat | compose stacks first-class: one deploy, dedicated vCPU, managed Postgres/Valkey, volumes and TLS all included in the plan |
| Heroku | ~$25 | no volumes; nothing between 1 GB ($50) and 2.5 GB ($250) dynos - 2 GB containers cost far more than shown |
| DO App Platform | ~$11 | no persistent volumes - stateful containers need managed DBs/Spaces (base $5 Spaces included here) |
| Render | ~$8 | per-service instances (0.5 GB $7, 2 GB $25) - every container is its own paid service |
| Railway | ~$5 | usage-based ($10/GB RAM-mo); vCPU billed separately at $20/vCPU-mo on top |
| Fly.io | ~$3 | cheapest sticker price - but burstable shared CPUs (1/16 core; dedicated vCPUs cost ~2-3×), no compose deploys (one app per container, manual wiring), managed DBs billed extra |
Full breakdown of what Cronicle costs managed versus self-hosted, with production sizing: Cronicle pricing.
Estimates assume RAM fully allocated at published on-demand rates - and sticker price isn't the whole comparison: the cheaper rows buy burstable shared CPUs, per-service wiring instead of a compose deploy, and managed databases billed separately. Heroku and DO App Platform have no persistent volumes at all - stateful stacks like this one need workarounds there.
#deploy it
On Miget
- Create a Compose Stack in app.miget.com pointing at the templates repository
- Set the stack path to
cronicle - No required variables - deploy as-is
- Deploy. Miget layers
compose.miget.yaml(RAM, privacy, volumes, managed services) automatically
Locally first?
Every template is portable, vanilla Docker Compose - the Miget overrides are ignored locally:
git clone https://github.com/deployable-sh/stacks
cd miget-compose-templates/cronicle
docker compose up -dSame files, same behavior. The template README covers connection strings and scaling notes.
#faq
Why Cronicle instead of plain cron or platform cronjobs?
Visibility and operations: run history, output logs, failure alerts, retries, and chaining in a UI anyone on the team can read. Platform-native cronjobs are great for app-internal tasks; Cronicle shines as the central, observable scheduler across many services.
How do jobs interact with my other applications?
Two patterns: HTTP plugin jobs that call endpoints on other apps in the project by service name (recommended), or shell jobs inside the Cronicle container - apk add your tooling in a derived image if scripts need more than busybox.
Is the default login really admin/admin?
Yes - and the UI is public on your app domain, so change it immediately after first deploy (Admin → Users). Treat that as part of the deploy checklist, not a someday task.
Can Cronicle run distributed across multiple servers?
Upstream Cronicle supports multi-server clusters, but this template deliberately runs single-server mode - keep replicas at 1. For one scheduler coordinating HTTP jobs, that is the right shape.
#more automation & jobs
Ship Cronicle today
One compose stack, 512 MiB of RAM, from $5/month flat, and it runs on your laptop with the same files.