Glossary

What is cron job?

Last updated June 15, 2026
Reviewed by Better-PaaS team

A scheduled command that runs at specific times. Learn what cron job means in self-hosted deployment and Better-PaaS workflows.

Overview

A scheduled command that runs at specific times.

Definition

A scheduled command that runs at specific times.

Real-world example

A nightly 02:00 UTC job runs bundle exec rake reports:send inside the Rails container without a separate scheduler VM.

Common mistake

Scheduling long jobs every minute, overlapping runs and exhausting database connections.

Better-PaaS in practice

Cron jobs are per-app in the dashboard. Commands run inside the app container with its env vars and filesystem.

FAQ

Is cron job only relevant to Better-PaaS?

No. cron job appears across Docker, cloud platforms, and self-hosted tooling. Better-PaaS exposes the concept in deploy logs, dashboard fields, or docs when it affects your app.