head to head · open source
apscheduler vs croner
apscheduler has 7,630 GitHub stars, 784 forks, 53 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. croner has 2,592 stars, 68 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 18 days ago. apscheduler leads on adoption by 194% (7,630 vs 2,592 stars). apscheduler is written in Python under MIT; croner is written in TypeScript under MIT. apscheduler has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, croner 3%. apscheduler was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (cron, scheduling), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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
| apscheduler | croner | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 7.6K | ★ 2.6K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-10 | 2026-08-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 784 | ⑂ 68 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick apscheduler if
- You weight community size — 7.6K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick croner if
- You want the croner feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and croner fits your workflow better
About apscheduler
APScheduler is an MIT licensed Python library that provides task scheduling and job queuing, scaling from a single process script to multi node deployments that share a persistent data store.
read the full apscheduler overview →
About croner
Croner is a JavaScript and TypeScript library for working with cron expressions. It lets developers trigger functions on a schedule or evaluate cron patterns to find upcoming run times, match dates, and calculate intervals. The project lives in the JavaScript runtime ecosystem and is designed for Node.js, Deno, Bun, and browser environments.
read the full croner overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is apscheduler or croner more popular?
apscheduler has 7,630 GitHub stars and croner has 2,592. apscheduler has the larger community by that measure.
Are apscheduler and croner free?
Both are open source. apscheduler is licensed under MIT and croner under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between apscheduler and croner?
apscheduler is written in Python and croner in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, apscheduler or croner?
Choose apscheduler if you want the larger community (7,630 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose croner if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.