CronEngine vs Cronitor
Cronitor monitors jobs that run somewhere else. CronEngine can also run them: it calls your URL on schedule, so a job does not need a server of its own.
Checked against Cronitor's own pages on 22 October 2026
Choose Cronitor if
You run your jobs on your own servers, work in a team that needs roles or single sign-on, or want logs kept for a year.
Choose CronEngine if
You want the scheduler and the monitoring in one place, a flat monthly price instead of per monitor and per user, or a branded status page included in the plan.
About Cronitor
Cronitor is a mature monitoring platform: cron job and heartbeat monitoring, uptime checks from more than twelve locations, status pages and visitor analytics, with SDKs and a CLI. It watches jobs that run on your own servers.
Side by side
"Not listed" means Cronitor's own pages do not mention it, not that it is impossible.
| Cronitor | CronEngine | |
|---|---|---|
| Runs your scheduled requests | No. It monitors jobs that run elsewhere | Yes: any method, headers, body and authentication |
| Fastest schedule | Checks every 30 seconds on Business, every 5 minutes on the free plan | Every 15 minutes on Free, every minute on Business |
| Request timeout | Not applicable, it does not call your URL | 20 seconds on Free, up to 600 on Enterprise |
| Run history | Logs and output kept 12 months on Business | 5 to 50 runs per job, with 10 KB of each reply |
| Heartbeats for your own scripts | Yes: run, complete and fail states, duration and logs | Yes: start, success and fail pings, and the run time. 2 on Free |
| Website uptime checks | Yes, from 12+ locations | Yes: 1 on Free, checks every minute from Pro |
| SSL certificates | Detects certificate problems | Expiry warnings at the countdowns you choose, from Starter |
| Status pages | 1 page on the free and Business plans, unlimited on Enterprise | From Starter: 1 page, 3 on Pro, with email subscribers, RSS and a badge |
| Status page branding | Branded page $25/month, private page $50/month | Logo, colours, dark mode and 5 languages from Starter; your own address from Pro |
| Alert channels | Email, Slack, Discord, Teams and webhooks; SMS and on-call tools such as PagerDuty on Business | Email, webhooks (also in Slack and Discord format) and Telegram |
| Team members | Roles and read-only users on Business, $5/month per user | One login per account |
| API | SDKs for Python, Node, PHP and more, plus a CLI | No public API |
| Free plan | 5 monitors, 1 user, 1 status page, checks every 5 minutes | 5 cron jobs, 2 heartbeats, 1 uptime check, no card |
| Paid pricing | $2/month per monitor plus $5/month per user | Flat monthly plans from €5.99, in euros |
Where Cronitor is stronger
Worth knowing before you switch:
- Teams: roles, read-only users and single sign-on.
- Checks every 30 seconds, from more than twelve locations.
- A CLI that wraps an existing crontab, and SDKs for many languages.
- Job output and logs kept for 12 months.
- SMS alerts and on-call tools such as PagerDuty and OpsGenie.
Pricing
Cronitor
$2/month per monitor plus $5/month per user. Free plan: 5 monitors, 1 user, 1 status page, checks every 5 minutes.
Cronitor's own example: 20 monitors and 3 users cost $55 a month.
CronEngine
- Free €0: 5 active cron jobs
- Starter €5.99/month: 25 active cron jobs
- Pro €12.99/month: 50 active cron jobs
- Business €24.99/month: unlimited cron jobs
Switching from Cronitor
- Jobs you call by URL: create them as CronEngine cron jobs, and remove the cron line on your server.
- Jobs that stay on your server: create a heartbeat and replace the Cronitor ping URL in the script. /start and /fail work the same way.
- Website checks: add them as uptime monitors, then build a status page from them.
Questions
Can CronEngine replace Cronitor completely?
For cron jobs, heartbeats, uptime checks and a status page, yes. CronEngine has no team accounts, SMS alerts or visitor analytics, so if you rely on those, Cronitor fits better.
How is the pricing different?
Cronitor charges per monitor and per user. CronEngine has flat monthly plans in euros, with a set number of jobs, heartbeats, uptime checks and status pages per plan.
Do I need to change my scripts?
Only the ping address. CronEngine heartbeats use one URL per job, with /start and /fail added for the start and a failure, the same idea as Cronitor's run and fail states.
Sources, checked 22 October 2026
Spotted something out of date? Tell us and we will correct it.
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