I was literally just pondering this. I’ve got a local backup job that is a very simple rsync command which I originally setup as a cron job. I’ve got a cloud backup job I setup later with systemd timers. I went to add a new backup job and had to decide which to go with.

There is absolutely still a place for the cron jobs. If you are aware of it’s limitations it cannot get simpler than a new /etc/cron.d/ file with a single line. But the systemd timer path offers some nice functionality in exchange for a tad more complexity and less footguns. Whichever one you understand the best is probably the best answer.