What is the difference between Cron and Anacron?

Programming Language
#1

The following are some of the distinctions between Cron and Anacron:

  • Cron’s minimum granularity is measured in minutes, but Anacron’s is measured in days.

  • A normal user can schedule a Cron job, but only a superuser may schedule an Anacron job (a superuser is a special user account used for system management). The real name of this account may be root, administrator, admin, or supervisor, depending on the operating system.

  • Cron expects the system to be up and functioning all of the time, but Anacron does not. If a task is scheduled in Anacron and the system is down at the moment, the work will be executed as soon as the system is up and running.

  • Cron is most suited for servers, but Anacron is best suited for both desktops and laptops.

  • When we want a task to run at a specific hour and minute, we should use Cron, and when we want it to run at any time, we should use Anacron.