Alternatives to Ubicloud
At 5,000 minutes a month, the cheapest Linux option is Ubicloud itself, at $6.25, then Namespace at $15. Every price is the vendor's own list price.
- Prices checked 15 and 16 October 2026
- No referral agreement
A month of Linux CI
List prices, cheapest first at 5,000 minutes
At 5,000 minutes of Linux CI a month, Ubicloud costs least, $6.25, and that is Ubicloud itself; next is Namespace at $15.
| Option | 2,000 minutes | 5,000 minutes | 10,000 minutes |
|---|---|---|---|
| UbicloudStay2 vCPU, list price, checked 16 October 2026 | $2.50 | $6.25 | $12.50 |
| Buildhound Personalone machine you already have, on a personal account | $10 | $10 | $10 |
| Namespace2 vCPU, list price, checked 16 October 2026 | $6 | $15 | $30 |
| Blacksmith2 vCPU, list price, checked 16 October 2026 | $8 | $20 | $40 |
| WarpBuild2 vCPU, list price, checked 16 October 2026 | $8 | $20 | $40 |
| Buildhound Teamone machine you already have, in an organisation | $24 | $24 | $24 |
GitHub-hosted runnersubuntu-latest, 2 vCPU, list price, checked 15 October 2026 | $12 | $30 | $60 |
| Depot2 vCPU, list price, at least the $20 plan, checked 16 October 2026 | $20 | $30 | $60 |
List prices for private repositories, before free minutes or credits on any side, cheapest first at 5,000 minutes. Public repositories run free on GitHub-hosted standard runners and on Buildhound. Runner sizes differ, as each note says, and a bigger runner may finish the same work in fewer minutes, so a row is the price of the same minutes, not of the same work. One machine runs these minutes a job at a time. Personal is for a personal account, Team for an organisation.
Choose the one that fits
Stay with Ubicloud when
- Your CI is Linux only.
- It costs less than one machine on Team until about 19,200 minutes a month.
- Its monthly credit covers light use.
A machine you already have fits when
- Your CI includes macOS, which Ubicloud does not offer.
- Your Linux minutes run past that line and you already have a machine.
- You want GitHub-hosted kept as the fallback when a machine is offline.
Questions
What is the cheapest alternative to Ubicloud for Linux CI?
At 5,000 minutes a month, Namespace at $15, then Blacksmith at $20, at list prices for private repositories checked 15 and 16 October 2026.
Is Ubicloud cheaper than GitHub-hosted runners for Linux?
Yes. At 5,000 minutes a month Ubicloud costs $6.25 and GitHub-hosted $30 at list price.
Every alternative, by kind
All comparisonsMachines you already have
A flat price per machine, never per minute, with GitHub-hosted as the fallback.
Hosted runners
Someone else's machines.
- GitHub-hosted runnersGitHub's own machines, billed by the minute$0.062 a macOS minute
- BlacksmithHosted runners on bare metal, by the minute$0.08 a macOS minute
- DepotHosted runners on AWS, sold in monthly plans$20 a month for 2,000 minutes
- WarpBuildHosted runners by the minute, or in your cloud$0.004 a Linux minute
- NamespaceHosted runners by the minute or a monthly plan$0.06 a macOS minute, pay as you go
- Vercel DaemonsRunner containers on Vercel, in public betaNo price published in the beta
Runners in your own cloud
Your cloud account's machines, plus a licence or a platform fee.
macOS only
Apple's own CI, and Macs rented by the month.
Your own machines
Other ways to run jobs on hardware you have.
Put the machines you already have to work.
A spare Mac, a Linux box, or the laptop you code on while it is plugged in and not in use. One prompt into Claude Code, Codex or Cursor: Linux jobs run within minutes, macOS jobs once the Mac has built its image.
- The Buildhound agent holds no GitHub credential
- A fresh VM per job, off your network
- Your agent prepares, you approve
- How security works