crontab.guru
Cron schedule editor that translates crontab expressions into plain English as you type.
why this verdict
Cancel it — switch to ChatGPT
ChatGPT and Cronitor now cover the same core job, so there is little reason to run a second tool for it.
- A named launch, not a vibe named, unlinked
- ChatGPT translating cron expressions in both directions instantly. OpenAI, March 14, 2023 — no announcement link recorded yet.
- How much of the job it covers all of it editorial call
- The whole core job — the thing the subscription was actually for.
- Is there a free way to do it? yes
- 3 of 3 listed replacements have a usable free tier: ChatGPT, Cronitor and Cronhub.
- What the call is worth nothing to cancel
- No paid entry tier tracked, so there is no subscription to cancel.
- Threatened by
- OpenAI
- Since
- March 14, 2023
- List price
- free
- Per year
- —
The backstory
crontab.guru turned five cryptic fields into a readable sentence and showed the next few run times. Almost every backend engineer had it bookmarked because nobody remembers whether day-of-week starts at zero. Any chat model now converts English to cron and back, checks edge cases and explains timezone behaviour in the same breath. The site still works and costs nothing, but it has quietly stopped being a tab people keep open.
Escape hatches
Converts schedules to and from cron syntax conversationally
openai.com open_in_newMonitors whether scheduled jobs actually ran on time
cronitor.io open_in_newCron job monitoring with alerting and a schedule builder
cronhub.io open_in_new3 of 3 replacements have a usable free tier.
