# Launch and Manage Cron Jobs Effortlessly

**URL:** <https://community.fly.io/t/launch-and-manage-cron-jobs-effortlessly/19328>\
**Category:** Fresh Produce\
**Tags:** help-me-help-you\
**Created:** [April 16, 2024, 8:26pm UTC](https://community.fly.io/t/launch-and-manage-cron-jobs-effortlessly/19328 "2024-04-16T20:26:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![shaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f07891/32.png) [@shaun](https://community.fly.io/u/shaun)\
**Post date:** [October 29, 2024, 2:56pm UTC](https://community.fly.io/t/launch-and-manage-cron-jobs-effortlessly/19328/21 "2024-10-29T14:56:18Z")

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> So the idea is the Fly app cron-manager depends on has no machines running and cron-manager will start a machine just for this scheduled job.

I’m not sure i’m following. The `app-name` specified in the Job is where the Machine will be provisioned. There’s nothing requiring the target App to have no machines.

> But still, what’s the image for?

With the new Machines platform, there’s no longer a 1:1 mapping between App and Image. The image could be the same as one of the Machines in your target app, or completely different.

> Should that be 1 cron-manager app and 5 independent fly apps or should that be a single cron-manager app with all the scripts?

You have the flexibility to do whatever makes the most sense for your use-case. When specifying the `app-name`, the Machine will be provisioned into that App and will inherit that Apps secrets.

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**Author:** ![jyasskin](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/fly1/user_avatar/community.fly.io/jyasskin/32/48820_2.png) [@jyasskin](https://community.fly.io/u/jyasskin)\
**Post date:** [February 1, 2025, 6:41pm UTC](https://community.fly.io/t/launch-and-manage-cron-jobs-effortlessly/19328/22 "2025-02-01T18:41:59Z")

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I appreciate the work Fly’s doing to make `cron` work for us, both here and in [Crontab with Supercronic · Fly Docs](https://fly.io/docs/blueprints/supercronic/), but it seems silly to have a continuously-running machine to just kick off jobs on another machine. $2/month isn’t huge, especially for large deployments, but it still feels wasteful.

In the absence of an efficient Fly option (and for periodic jobs that don’t need 100% reliability), I’ve been using a [Github Action](https://docs.github.com/en/actions/writing-workflows/choosing-when-your-workflow-runs/events-that-trigger-workflows#schedule) to make an HTTP request to my Fly app that’ll kick off whatever work actually needs to happen.

[Previous page](https://community.fly.io/t/launch-and-manage-cron-jobs-effortlessly/19328.md?page=1)