Qinglong is a self-hosted timed task management platform that schedules and runs Python 3, JavaScript, Shell, and TypeScript scripts from a web interface, built for developers and operators who want central control over scheduled jobs instead of hand-editing crontab on every machine.

What it is

Qinglong is a TypeScript project, licensed Apache-2.0, that combines a task scheduler with a browser-based management panel. It is distributed mainly as Docker images under whyour/qinglong and secondarily as the npm package @whyour/qinglong. From the panel, users write and store scripts, define environment variables and configuration files, set schedules, read task logs, and receive system-level notifications. The Docker image ships in two variants: latest, built on Alpine, and debian, built on debian-slim, with the Debian variant recommended when Alpine lacks a required dependency, most notably when running the container as a non-root user, since Alpine's crond requires root.

The concrete problem it solves is the operational gap around plain crontab. A crontab entry names a command and a schedule, but gives no place to keep the script itself, no retained output to inspect, no managed environment variables, and no remote interface. Qinglong replaces that hand-maintained crontab file with a managed console: jobs, their scripts, their variables, and their logs all live in one panel reachable over HTTP on port 5700. It sits in the self-hosted Linux container ecosystem alongside other cron front ends, and it lists crontab among its topics.

Key capabilities

• Runs scheduled jobs in four languages: Python 3, JavaScript, Shell, and TypeScript.
• Manages scripts, environment variables, and configuration files online rather than through shell access to the host.
• Shows task logs online, so job output is inspectable from the panel.
• Supports second-level task settings, allowing schedules finer than the one-minute granularity of classic crontab.
• Sends system-level notifications.
• Offers a dark mode and a mobile-friendly interface, so jobs can be checked and started from a phone.
• Ships two Docker image variants, whyour/qinglong:latest on Alpine and whyour/qinglong:debian on debian-slim.

Who uses it and how

• Self-hosters running a home server or NAS who deploy one container, mount a single data volume at /ql/data, and publish port 5700.
• Operators who need a non-root container: they use the debian image and pass --user qinglong, a combination the Alpine image cannot support because its crond needs root.
• Users on hosts where containers are not wanted: they install @whyour/qinglong via npm on debian, ubuntu, or alpine systems, having installed node, npm, python3, pip3, and pnpm themselves.
• Teams replacing crontab sprawl across several machines, who want one panel for schedules, stored environment variables, and retained log output rather than per-host editing.
• Script-driven automations that depend on centrally stored environment variables and configuration files, edited in the panel and injected at run time.

Getting started

Docker is the primary path: run whyour/qinglong:latest or whyour/qinglong:debian with a volume mounted at /ql/data and port 5700 published. The npm route installs the same project with npm i @whyour/qinglong, and installation guides, built-in API references, and built-in command references are published at https://qinglong.online.

How it compares

The README explicitly credits crontab-ui among its references, which places Qinglong in the same family of web front ends that put a browser interface over cron. It goes further than a thin cron editor by also storing the scripts themselves, their environment variables, and their configuration files, and by supporting Python 3, JavaScript, Shell, and TypeScript alongside second-level scheduling. The facts provided name no paid products that Qinglong replaces.

When to use it — and when not to

A self-hoster must operate the Docker host, the mounted /ql/data volume, and port 5700, or maintain a host with node, npm, python3, pip3, and pnpm installed for the npm route. Users who need non-root execution inside a container must accept the larger debian image, because the Alpine variant cannot do it. The README itself is brief and defers installation, API, and command details to the external documentation site, so anyone expecting complete operational guidance, high-availability clustering, or a supported hosted service should look elsewhere; only a demo instance is offered at http://demo.qinglong.online:4433/.

docker pull whyour/qinglong:latest
docker pull whyour/qinglong:debian

docker run -d \
  -v /path/to/ql/data:/ql/data \
  -p 5700:5700 \
  --user qinglong \
  --name qinglong \
  whyour/qinglong:debian

npm i @whyour/qinglong

git clone https://github.com/whyour/qinglong.git
cd qinglong
cp .env.example .env
# 推荐使用 pnpm https://pnpm.io/zh/installation
npm install -g [email protected]
pnpm install
pnpm start