Many web hosts offer shell accounts or some sort of built-in job scheduler such as ''cron'' that makes it easy for users to schedule jobs. Such hosts run jobs as [[command-line application]] applicationss that may optionally communicate with the web server. A webcron solution, however, runs entirely within the purview of the web server environment of a web host. This allows a webcron solution to operate on hosts that do not offer a job scheduler such as cron or a shell account. A webcron solution will also run equally well on hosts that do offer users such capabilities but is designed as a substitution or replacement.<ref name="phpJobSched">[http://www.phpjobscheduler.co.uk/ phpJobScheduler overview documentation], retrieved October 14, 2010</ref>{{psc|date=December 2010}}
A webcron solution is made up of two pieces. The first piece is a script that will execute the tasks that resides somewhere accessible via a [[URL]]. The second piece is to use a scheduling provider that contacts the URL of the script at regular intervals.
