head to head · open source
ansible vs swarm-cronjob
ansible has 71,204 GitHub stars, 24,474 forks, 837 open issues and last shipped yesterday. swarm-cronjob has 889 stars, 77 forks, 40 open issues and last shipped 10 days ago. ansible leads on adoption by 7,909% (71,204 vs 889 stars). ansible is written in Python under GPL-3.0; swarm-cronjob is written in Go under MIT. ansible has attracted 34% as many forks as stars, swarm-cronjob 9%. ansible was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| ansible | swarm-cronjob | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 71K | ★ 889 |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 24K | ⑂ 77 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ansible if
- You weight community size — 71K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick swarm-cronjob if
- You want the swarm-cronjob feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and swarm-cronjob fits your workflow better
About ansible
[ ][copying] Ansible Ansible is a radically simple IT automation system. It handles configuration management, application deployment, cloud provisioning, ad hoc task execution, network automation, and multi node orchestration. Ansible makes complex changes like zero downtime rolling updates with load balancers easy. More information on the Ansible website. Design Principles Have an extremely simple setup process with a minimal learning curve. Manage machines quickly and in parallel. Avoid custom agents and additional open ports, be agentless by leveraging the existing SSH daemon. Describe infrastructure in a…
read the full ansible overview →
About swarm-cronjob
About swarm cronjob lets you run recurring jobs on Docker Swarm by defining cron style schedules with service labels. It watches your services through the Docker API, keeps its configuration in sync automatically, and creates scheduled job runs across the cluster without requiring a separate scheduler. [!TIP] Want to be notified of new releases? Check out 🔔 Diun (Docker Image Update Notifier) project! Documentation Documentation can be found on Contributing Want to contribute? Awesome! The most basic way to show your support is to star the project, or to raise issues. You can also support this project by…
read the full swarm-cronjob overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ansible or swarm-cronjob more popular?
ansible has 71,204 GitHub stars and swarm-cronjob has 889. ansible has the larger community by that measure.
Are ansible and swarm-cronjob free?
Both are open source. ansible is licensed under GPL-3.0 and swarm-cronjob under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ansible and swarm-cronjob?
ansible is written in Python and swarm-cronjob in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, ansible or swarm-cronjob?
Choose ansible if you want the larger community (71,204 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose swarm-cronjob if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.