Action Scheduler
Action Scheduler - Job Queue for WordPress
3.5(13 reviews)
·20K+ active installs·Updated 8 months agoAs of April 2026, Action Scheduler is a WordPress cron plugin with 20K+ active installations and a 3.5/5 rating from 13 reviews. It has been downloaded 602K+ times in total. Requires WordPress 6.5+ and PHP 7.2+. Available on WordPress.org since 2020. Downloads are down 7% this week. Support resolution rate: 67%. Top alternative: WP Crontrol.
3.5/513 reviews
20K+active installs
67%resolved
6 yearssince 2020
Overview
Action Scheduler is a scalable, traceable job queue for background processing large sets of actions in WordPress. It’s specially designed to be distributed in WordPress plugins.
Action Scheduler works by triggering an action hook to run at some time in the future. Each hook can be scheduled with unique data, to allow callbacks to perform operations on that data. The hook can also be scheduled to run on one or more occasions.
Think of it like an extension to do_action() which adds the ability to delay and repeat a hook.
Battle-Tested Background Processing
Every month, Action Scheduler processes millions of payments for Subscriptions, webhooks for WooCommerce, as well as emails and other events for a range of other plugins.
It’s been seen on live sites processing queues in exces…
Ratings & Reviews
3.513 reviews
5 ★
8
4 ★
0
3 ★
0
2 ★
1
1 ★
4
Recent Reviews
Did the job !
by pol·4 months ago
I was missing the actionscheduler_logs table in my database. This plugin detected it and restored it.
Thanks for your efforts !
Pascal.
This plugin is broken and almost malicious in nature.
by smokex365·5 months ago·1 reply
I started wondering why my db server was tracking TB’s of internal traffic. After a few days I tracked it down to this plugin. It was scheduling millions of claims and logs. You can’t manage any of them through the GUI without other 3rd party plugins and even then Action Scheduler just re-adds anything tasks you delete or attempt to pause. This means GB’s of useless garbage from claims and logs in my DB which slowed my server to a crawl trying to delete. I tried reinstalling the plugin. Tried pausing its schedule. Nothing work. Well, not nothing. Uninstalling the plugin and deleting the tables it added worked fine. No more 4GB WP DB or 4-6TB or network traffic. Considering I never even intentionally installed this plugin I find it incredibly frustrating how broken and incomplete it is. Do better.
It’s great.
by mfwriter·1 year ago
Everything works as stated. There was a problem with hung tasks, now cron+wp cli executes everything. Other options did not work to solve the problem.
Incredibly powerful
by Auke Piersma·2 years ago·1 reply
What this plugin/library adds to WordPress is incredibly powerful. It’s asynchronous execution of actions gives developers incredible possibilities. The fact that plugin developers have the option to integrate this plugin/library into their own plugins is fantastic. Keep up the good work!
Like a Leech
by traqbar·2 years ago·6 replies
Only tested it, I didnt like it, and now it wont leave. Manually removing tables – crashes my site. Sucking the life out of my server. I have to ask support for how to get rid of it.
Horrible Horrible
Download Trends
Today: 787Yesterday: 565This week: 4KPeriod total: 163K
Compatibility
| WordPress | 6.5+ requiredTested up to 6.8.5 |
| PHP | 7.2+ required |
Version Adoption
v3.9
91.5%
Other
8.5%
Top Alternatives to Action Scheduler
Frequently Asked Questions
Changelog
3.9.3 – 2025-07-15
- Add hook ‘action_scheduler_ensure_recurring_actions’ specifically for scheduling recurring actions.
- Assume an action is valid until proven otherwise.
- Implement SKIP LOCKED during action claiming.
- Import
get_flag_value()fromWP_CLI\Utilsbefore using. - Make
$uniqueavailable to all pre-creation/short-circuit hooks.
…and 6 more changes
Contributors
Plugin data sourced from WordPress.org. Analysis and metrics by PluginSift.