WordPress uses its own cron scheduler (outside of the system or host cron).
These scheduled tasks can be utilised for a number of wordpress functions including but not limited to :
- Scheduling Posts
- Updates
- Notifications
- Security Checks
- and much more
When does the WordPress cron run?
By default, every time someone visits your site, it triggers and queries if there is anything to do yet.
On high traffic sites, this can be quite a system hog for your hosting provider, and there is a good arguement to disable the default triggering of cron and replace that by a system invoked scheduled one. For example, every hour, every day, every 15 minutes etc.
To learn how to disable the WordPress cron, read this article.
You can trigger the WordPress cron manually by following one of these steps.
You can also schedule the WordPress cron via your hosting panel.