node-cron/node-cron

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

3275 stars · 283 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded

node-cron is a zero-dependency job scheduling library for Node.js that runs recurring tasks using standard cron expressions. It supports overlap prevention, distributed coordination across multiple instances, and running heavy jobs in isolated forked background processes.

Use cases

• run a task every minute in node.js
• schedule nightly backups with cron expressions
• prevent overlapping runs of long-running jobs
• coordinate cron jobs across multiple app replicas
• run heavy scheduled jobs without blocking the event loop
• schedule tasks in a specific timezone
• pause and resume scheduled tasks at runtime

When to choose

• you need in-process cron scheduling for a Node.js application
• you want a lightweight scheduler with zero dependencies
• you run multiple instances and need only one to execute each scheduled fire
• you want long-running tasks to skip instead of stacking up

When to avoid

• you need persistent job queues with retries and durability (use a job queue like BullMQ)
• you need scheduling outside Node.js
• you need sub-second precision timers rather than cron-style schedules

Facets

library · maturity stable

scheduling workflow-automation developer-tools backend developer-tools cross-platform cron job-scheduler task-scheduling background-jobs distributed-cron overlap-prevention zero-dependencies typescript automation nodejs

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markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="node-cron/node-cron")