# Every way to run GitHub Actions, side by side

> Where each runs your jobs, what macOS, Linux and Windows cost, and how it is priced. Every price comes from the vendor's own page, with the date we checked. Buildhound has no referral agreement with any of them.

| Option | Where jobs run | macOS | Linux | Windows | How it is priced |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Buildhound | Yours. A spare Mac, a Linux box, or a laptop while plugged in and not in use. | Your Mac. A fresh macOS VM per job; Apple allows two per Mac. | Your Mac or Linux box. A fresh Linux VM per job, arm64 on a Mac. | Not yet. Windows jobs stay on GitHub-hosted. | Flat, per machine. $10 a machine a month on a personal account, $24 in an organisation, counted only on days it runs a job. Public repositories free. |
| [GitHub-hosted runners](https://buildhound.sh/compare/github-hosted.md) | GitHub's machines. Hosted by GitHub. | $0.062 a minute. `macos-latest`, 3 vCPU. | $0.006 a minute. `ubuntu-latest`, 2 vCPU x64; arm64 at $0.005. | $0.01 a minute. `windows-latest`, 2 vCPU. | By the minute. In private repositories, each job rounded up to the whole minute. Free and Team include 2,000 and 3,000 minutes a month; a macOS minute uses about ten. |
| [Blacksmith](https://buildhound.sh/compare/blacksmith.md) | Blacksmith's bare metal. In the US and Europe. | $0.08 a minute. M4, 6 vCPU. | $0.004 a minute. 2 vCPU x64; arm64 at $0.0025. | $0.008 a minute. 2 vCPU, in public beta. | By the minute. 3,000 free minutes a month per organisation, no minimum. |
| [Depot](https://buildhound.sh/compare/depot.md) | EC2 on AWS. In Depot's account, or yours. | $0.08 a minute. M4 or M2, 8 vCPU, on the $200 plan and above. | $0.006 a minute. 2 vCPU, x64 or arm64. | $0.008 a minute. 2 vCPU. | A plan a month. $20 with 2,000 minutes or $200 with 20,000 minutes, then $0.006 a minute. No free tier; a 7-day trial. |
| [WarpBuild](https://buildhound.sh/compare/warpbuild.md) | WarpBuild's cloud. Or your AWS, GCP or Azure account, for Linux and Windows. | $0.08 a minute. M4 Pro, 6 vCPU. | $0.004 a minute. 2 vCPU x64; arm64 at $0.003. | $0.016 a minute. 4 vCPU, the smallest size. | By the minute. Pay as you go, with no plan. |
| [Namespace](https://buildhound.sh/compare/namespace.md) | Namespace's hardware. At several sites. | $0.06 a minute. M5 Max or M4 Pro, 4 vCPU, pay as you go. | $0.003 a minute. 2 vCPU, pay as you go. | $0.006 a minute. 2 vCPU, pay as you go. | By the minute or a plan. $100 a month with 100,000 unit minutes or $250 a month with 250,000 unit minutes, about two thirds of the pay-as-you-go price. |
| [Ubicloud](https://buildhound.sh/compare/ubicloud.md) | Ubicloud's servers. In Germany, with an optional US fleet. | Not offered. | $0.00125 a minute. 2 vCPU x64 or arm64 on Standard; new accounts start on the faster Premium tier, which costs more. | Not offered. | By the minute. With a $2.50 credit each month. |
| [Vercel Daemons](https://buildhound.sh/compare/vercel-daemons.md) | Vercel's servers. On Fluid compute, in the regions you pick. | Not offered. | amd64 containers. Built from a Dockerfile in your project, up to 4 vCPUs and 8 GiB each. | Not offered. | No price published. For Daemons in the public beta; Hobby includes 10 vCPU-hours a month. |
| [RunsOn](https://buildhound.sh/compare/runs-on.md) | Your AWS account. Set up with CloudFormation. | Not yet. AWS's Mac instances have a 24-hour minimum. | About $0.0009 a minute. 2 vCPU at AWS spot, x64 or arm64. | Windows Server. 2022 and 2025, on your AWS bill. | A yearly licence. €300 to €3,600 by jobs a month, free for non-commercial open source, plus your AWS bill at spot prices. |
| [Cirun](https://buildhound.sh/compare/cirun.md) | Your cloud account. Such as AWS, GCP, Azure or Hetzner, or your machines with its agent. | Your own Macs. In VMs through Lume. | Your cloud. Or VMs on your own machines. | Not stated. | A fee by repository. $29 a month for 3 private repositories, $79 a month for 10 private repositories, free for public ones, plus your cloud bill. |
| [Xcode Cloud](https://buildhound.sh/compare/xcode-cloud.md) | Apple's machines. | Apple platforms. Builds, tests and ships apps on the Xcode and macOS versions you pick. | Not offered. | Not offered. | Compute hours a month. 25 come with the Apple Developer Program, then 100 for $49.99, 250 for $99.99, 1,000 for $399.99, 10,000 for $3999.99. |
| [Manzanita](https://buildhound.sh/compare/manzanita.md) | Manzanita's Macs. In Menlo Park, California. | M4 Pro, 6 vCPU, 22 GB. One job at a time per runner, up to two hours each. | Not offered. | Not offered. | Flat, per runner. $149 a month, no per-minute charge; past 15,000 minutes a runner in 30 days it asks for a conversation. |
| [MacRun](https://buildhound.sh/compare/macrun.md) | A Mac mini rented to you alone. In MacRun's rack. | The rented Mac. Jobs run one after another. | Not offered. | Not offered. | Flat, per Mac. $139 a month for an M6 with unlimited minutes; annual billing is 10 months for 12. |
| [ushr](https://buildhound.sh/compare/ushr.md) | Yours. Your own Macs and Linux machines. | Your Mac. In a Tart or Lume VM. | Your machine. In a Docker or Podman container on the host. | Not offered. | By host. Free for one host and one GitHub account or organisation; $49 a month for up to 3 hosts, then $19 a host. |

Smallest standard size, list price. Free minutes and credits are left out so the prices compare like for like.

## Every page

### Hosted runners

Someone else's machines.

- [Buildhound vs GitHub-hosted runners](https://buildhound.sh/compare/github-hosted.md): GitHub's own machines, billed by the minute.
- [Buildhound vs Blacksmith](https://buildhound.sh/compare/blacksmith.md): Hosted runners on bare metal, by the minute.
- [Buildhound vs Depot](https://buildhound.sh/compare/depot.md): Hosted runners on AWS, sold in monthly plans.
- [Buildhound vs WarpBuild](https://buildhound.sh/compare/warpbuild.md): Hosted runners by the minute, or in your cloud.
- [Buildhound vs Namespace](https://buildhound.sh/compare/namespace.md): Hosted runners by the minute or a monthly plan.
- [Buildhound vs Ubicloud](https://buildhound.sh/compare/ubicloud.md): Low-cost hosted Linux runners, by the minute.
- [Buildhound vs Vercel Daemons](https://buildhound.sh/compare/vercel-daemons.md): Runner containers on Vercel, in public beta.

### Runners in your own cloud

Your cloud account's machines, plus a licence or a platform fee.

- [Buildhound vs RunsOn](https://buildhound.sh/compare/runs-on.md): Runners in your own AWS account, for a yearly licence.
- [Buildhound vs Cirun](https://buildhound.sh/compare/cirun.md): Runners in your own cloud, for a platform fee.

### macOS only

Apple's own CI, and Macs rented by the month.

- [Buildhound vs Xcode Cloud](https://buildhound.sh/compare/xcode-cloud.md): Apple's own CI for Apple platforms, by the hour.
- [Buildhound vs Manzanita](https://buildhound.sh/compare/manzanita.md): macOS runners rented by the month, a VM per job.
- [Buildhound vs MacRun](https://buildhound.sh/compare/macrun.md): A whole Mac mini rented by the month.

### Your own machines

Other ways to run jobs on hardware you have.

- [Buildhound vs ushr](https://buildhound.sh/compare/ushr.md): Open-source runners on your own machines, by host.
- [Buildhound vs a plain self-hosted runner](https://buildhound.sh/docs/why-not-a-plain-runner.md): GitHub's free runner on your own machine, row by row.