norc vs cron monitoring tools
Cronitor, Healthchecks.io and Dead Man's Snitch notice a missed check-in, and several are free or self-hostable. norc keeps that and adds control: one view of every machine, schedule edits without SSH, and catch-up for runs missed while a machine was off.
Monitors charge per thing you watch. norc charges per machine you manage.
| norc | Cronitor | Healthchecks.io | Dead Man's Snitch | Sentry Crons | CronRadar | cron-job.org | Better Stack | UptimeRobot | Hyperping | OnlineOrNot | cron / systemd | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||||||||||||
| Free tier | Yes | Yes · 5 monitors | Yes · 20 jobs | Yes · 1 snitch | Yes · 1 cron monitor | 14-day trial | Yes · unlimited | Yes · 10 heartbeats | Yes · 50 monitors | Yes · 20 monitors | Yes · 3 monitors | Free (OS) |
| Cheapest paid plan | $8/mo · 5 machines | $2/monitor/mo + $5/user/mo | $20/mo · 100 jobs | $5/mo · 3 snitches | $26/mo + $0.78/monitor | $1/monitor/mo | Free | $25/mo | $7/mo · 10 monitors | $24/mo · 50 monitors | $15/mo · 10 monitors | $0 |
| Value metric | flat tier by machines and jobs | per monitor + user | per job | per snitch | per cron monitor | per cron monitor | free / donations | per monitor / heartbeat | per monitor | per monitor | per monitor | n/a |
| Jobs included | 15 free · 30 Pro · 150 Power (per account) | Billed per monitor | Billed per job | Billed per snitch | Billed per monitor | Billed per monitor | Unlimited | Billed per monitor | Billed per monitor | Billed per monitor | Billed per monitor | Unlimited |
| Reliability & security | ||||||||||||
| Jobs keep running if the vendor is down | ✓ real cron runs them | n/a · monitors only | n/a · monitors only | n/a · monitors only | n/a · monitors only | n/a · monitors only | — jobs run on their servers | n/a · monitors only | n/a · monitors only | n/a · monitors only | n/a · monitors only | ✓ |
| Needs inbound access or your SSH keys | No · outbound agent | No · receives pings | No · receives pings | No · receives pings | No · receives pings | No · receives pings | No · runs on their servers | No · receives pings | No · receives pings | No · receives pings | No · receives pings | Yes · SSH each box |
| Preserves hand-edited crontab lines | ✓ only touches its own | ⚠️ CLI rewraps entries | n/a · never edits | n/a · never edits | n/a · never edits | n/a · never edits | n/a · no crontab | n/a · never edits | n/a · never edits | n/a · never edits | n/a · never edits | n/a · you edit it |
| Platform | ||||||||||||
| Native apps | Desktop (macOS) · iOS · Android · CLI | Web + CLI | Web only | iOS | Web · mobile app unmaintained | Web only | Web only | iOS · Android | iOS · Android | iOS · Android | iOS · Android | n/a |
| Monitoring | ||||||||||||
| Cron-job failure / heartbeat monitoring | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Alerting channels | In app for now | Many | Many | Many | Many | Many | Many | Many | Many | Many | — | |
| Self-host / on-prem | Agent runs on your machines | — | Yes · OSS | — | Yes · OSS | — | Yes · OSS | — | — | — | — | n/a |
| Management | ||||||||||||
| Remotely edit & write cron jobs on your machines | ✓ | Partial · CLI wraps local entries | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — (SSH each box) |
| Plain-English schedule to cron expression (optional, bring your own key) | ✓ | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| One view of every machine’s jobs | ✓ | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
Native apps: Competitor app availability checked against vendor sites and app stores in August 2026. “Web only” means no official native app was found at that time; third-party website wrappers are not counted.
Cron-job failure / heartbeat monitoring: Monitors are good at noticing a missed check-in, and norc does that too: it sweeps each job against its schedule and flags runs that never happened or failed. On top of that you get one view of every machine, schedule editing, and catch-up for runs missed while a machine was off (up to a cap).
Pricing and features as of August 2026. Vendor sites: Cronitor· Healthchecks.io· Dead Man's Snitch· Sentry· CronRadar· cron-job.org· Better Stack· UptimeRobot· Hyperping· OnlineOrNot. Cronhub is excluded (service discontinued June 2026).
The reliability and access rows describe how norc works. Security documents how pairing, capability signing and managed-line tagging work, and the FAQ covers platform support and what happens on downgrade.