# Buildhound vs Blacksmith

> Blacksmith runs GitHub Actions on its own bare-metal machines, by the minute and below GitHub's rates. Buildhound runs them on machines you already have, for a flat price per machine.

## A month of macOS CI

List prices, before free minutes or credits on any side, cheapest first at 5,000 minutes. One machine runs these minutes a job at a time; more jobs at once need more machines, each counted only on days it runs a job.

| Option | 2,000 minutes | 5,000 minutes | 10,000 minutes |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Buildhound Personal (one machine you already have) | $10 | $10 | $10 |
| Buildhound Team (one machine you already have) | $24 | $24 | $24 |
| [GitHub-hosted](https://docs.github.com/en/billing/reference/actions-runner-pricing), checked 15 October 2026 (`macos-latest`, list price) | $124 | $310 | $620 |
| [Blacksmith](https://www.blacksmith.sh/pricing), checked 16 October 2026 (6 vCPU, list price) | $160 | $400 | $800 |

- At 2,000 minutes: One Mac you already have costs $24 a month on Team. Blacksmith costs $160, and GitHub-hosted $124.
- At 5,000 minutes: One Mac you already have costs $24 a month on Team. Blacksmith costs $400, and GitHub-hosted $310.
- At 10,000 minutes: One Mac you already have costs $24 a month on Team. Blacksmith costs $800, and GitHub-hosted $620.

## A month of Linux CI

List prices, before free minutes or credits on any side, cheapest first at 5,000 minutes. One machine runs these minutes a job at a time; more jobs at once need more machines, each counted only on days it runs a job.

| Option | 2,000 minutes | 5,000 minutes | 10,000 minutes |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Buildhound Personal (one machine you already have) | $10 | $10 | $10 |
| [Blacksmith](https://www.blacksmith.sh/pricing), checked 16 October 2026 (2 vCPU, list price) | $8 | $20 | $40 |
| Buildhound Team (one machine you already have) | $24 | $24 | $24 |
| [GitHub-hosted](https://docs.github.com/en/billing/reference/actions-runner-pricing), checked 15 October 2026 (`ubuntu-latest`, list price) | $12 | $30 | $60 |

- At 2,000 minutes: Blacksmith costs less here, $8 against $24 for one machine on Team. One machine pays off from about 6,000 minutes a month.
- At 5,000 minutes: Blacksmith costs less here, $20 against $24 for one machine on Team. One machine pays off from about 6,000 minutes a month.
- At 10,000 minutes: One machine you already have costs $24 a month on Team. Blacksmith costs $40, and GitHub-hosted $60.

## Choose Blacksmith when

- Nobody on the team has a machine to spare.
- You need Windows, or Linux runners larger than your machines.
- Many jobs must run at once, and 3,000 free minutes a month cover a small team.

## Choose Buildhound when

- You already have a Mac or a Linux box, even a laptop you work on.
- Your macOS CI runs past about 300 minutes a month, or Linux past about 6,000.
- You want GitHub-hosted kept as the fallback when a machine is offline.

## Side by side

Blacksmith's side is from its own pages ([source](https://www.blacksmith.sh/pricing)), checked 16 October 2026.

### Price

| | Buildhound | Blacksmith |
| --- | --- | --- |
| How it is priced | 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. | By the minute. 3,000 free minutes a month per organisation, no minimum. |
| macOS | Your Mac. A fresh macOS VM per job; Apple allows two per Mac. | $0.08 a minute. M4, 6 vCPU. |
| Linux | Your Mac or Linux box. A fresh Linux VM per job, arm64 on a Mac. | $0.004 a minute. 2 vCPU x64; arm64 at $0.0025. |
| Windows | Not yet. Windows jobs stay on GitHub-hosted. | $0.008 a minute. 2 vCPU, in public beta. |

### Where it runs

| | Buildhound | Blacksmith |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Machines | Yours. A spare Mac, a Linux box, or a laptop while plugged in and not in use. | Blacksmith's bare metal. In the US and Europe. |
| Each job | A fresh VM, destroyed after. It reaches the internet and never your network. | A Firecracker microVM. For Linux and Windows jobs. |
| Secrets | On your hardware. Only on a machine a person marked Trusted. | On Blacksmith's machines. Like every hosted runner. |

### When things change

| | Buildhound | Blacksmith |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Runners unavailable | New jobs route to the healthy side. GitHub-hosted, within about two minutes; a stuck job is re-run. | Jobs wait for Blacksmith. Moving them to GitHub-hosted is a change to `runs-on`. |
| Jobs at once | As many as your machines hold. Such as one macOS and one Linux job on a 24 GB Mac mini. When every machine is busy, new jobs go to GitHub-hosted after two and a half minutes. | No limit. By its docs. |
| Setup | One prompt to your coding agent. Or two commands by hand. | Its GitHub App and a label. On an organisation. |

## One line in runs-on

Blacksmith:

```yaml
runs-on: blacksmith-2vcpu-ubuntu-2404
```

Buildhound, on your machine while one can take the job and on GitHub-hosted when none can:

```yaml
runs-on: ${{ vars.BUILDHOUND_LINUX || 'ubuntu-latest' }}
```

Buildhound has no referral agreement with Blacksmith. Source: https://buildhound.sh/compare/blacksmith.