---
title: "norc vs Cronitor, Healthchecks.io & Dead Man's Snitch"
description: "Cronitor, Healthchecks.io and Dead Man's Snitch notice a missed check-in. norc keeps that and adds control: one view of every machine, edits and catch-up."
url: https://norc.app/compare
---

# 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 price by the number of things you watch. norc prices by machines, with a job cap per account.

|  | 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 | $5/mo · 20 jobs; $20/mo · 100 jobs | $5/mo · 3 snitches | $26/mo + $0.78/monitor | $1/monitor/mo | Free | $34/mo · 1 responder | $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 responder + heartbeat packs | 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 | 10 heartbeats free, then heartbeat packs | 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, Linux) · 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 | Email | 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](https://cronitor.io/pricing)· [Healthchecks.io](https://healthchecks.io/pricing/)· [Dead Man's Snitch](https://deadmanssnitch.com/plans)· [Sentry](https://sentry.io/pricing/)· [CronRadar](https://cronradar.com/)· [cron-job.org](https://cron-job.org/en/)· [Better Stack](https://betterstack.com/pricing)· [UptimeRobot](https://uptimerobot.com/pricing/)· [Hyperping](https://hyperping.com/pricing)· [OnlineOrNot](https://onlineornot.com/pricing). Cronhub is excluded (service discontinued June 2026).

The reliability and access rows describe how norc works. [Security](https://norc.app/security) documents how pairing, capability signing and managed-line tagging work, and [the FAQ](https://norc.app/faq) covers platform support and what happens on downgrade.

[Get started free](https://vault.norc.app/login?mode=signup)