# systemd timers

40 Hacker News commenters recommended systemd timers and 16 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Recommended as a cleaner cron replacement with per-job logs, explicit time zones and easy testing. Main caveat: complex schedules are as hard to write as anywhere else.

## Why people recommend it

- Easy monitoring, logs and troubleshooting (5 comments): "The integration with journalctl, especially in a newer OS like Debian 13 where syslog is gone, is really nice." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48370787)) "the ability to easily know when the program last ran and what its exit code and stderr output were" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48372672)) "systemctl list-timers is orders of magnitude better than trying to wade through /etc/crontab" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48376657))
- Addresses real cron shortcomings (5 comments): "now, they aren't just at feature parity, they surpassed plain old cron" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48372985)) "Systemd timers have numerous nice properties compared to cron." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46367205)) "Systemd timers address real shortcomings of cron." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48385553))
- Simpler syntax for common schedules (3 comments): "Simple cases are simpler to represent in systemd because fields are optional in various circumstances" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48465713)) "Systemd enables cleaner, simpler syntax for common cases." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48387896)) "Still easier to read than advanced cron magic." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48372936))

## What people warn about

- Complex schedules no simpler than cron (3 comments): "dead simple things look dead simple, but complex things are -if they're possible at all- at least as complex as they are everywhere else" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48372589)) "it looks like systemd's syntax when you want to specify something that's not just that one number is at least as complex." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48373661)) "complex things are -if they're possible at all- at least as complex as they are everywhere else." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48438507))
- More files and setup than cron (3 comments): "it is still more intuitive to me than the systemd unit file syntax and usage" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48372380)) "cron looks to be soo straightforward and easier to use than this" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48375141)) "you need to create 3 files instead of one line in crontab" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48401598))
- Can silently stop firing (2 comments): "it can also suddenly stop firing once it has fired on a February 29th and then never fire again" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48373970)) "until they fuck you over in an entirely inscrutable way" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48371974))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [cron](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cron.md): 36 recommend
- [Slurm Workload Manager](https://hackerapproved.com/p/slurm.md): 10 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "systemd timers", https://hackerapproved.com/p/systemd-timers/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).