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Buildhound vs CircleCI

CircleCI is a CI service with its own .circleci/config.yml, billed in credits for each minute a job runs. Buildhound runs your GitHub Actions workflows on machines you already have, for a flat price per machine.

Set up by hand

What a month costs

Minutes a month
  • Buildhound Teamone machine you already have$24
  • GitHub-hostedmacos-latest, list price$310
  • CircleCIM4 Pro Medium, 6 CPU, 28 GB, list price, at least the $15 plan$600

One Mac you already have costs $24 a month on Team. CircleCI costs $600, and GitHub-hosted $310.

List prices, before free minutes or credits on either side. One machine runs these minutes a job at a time; Personal is $10 a machine on a personal account.

Choose the one that fits

Choose CircleCI when

  • Your team already runs CircleCI.
  • You want its orbs, test splitting and insights.
  • Nobody on the team has a machine to spare.

Choose Buildhound when

  • Your CI already lives in GitHub Actions.
  • You want a flat price per machine instead of credits.
  • You have a recent Mac and want macOS jobs off the per-minute meter.

Side by side

CircleCI from its own pages, checked 17 October 2026

Two ways to run the same workflow
Clean runners on machines you already have$24a machine a month on Team
CircleCICI billed in credits$0.12an M4 Pro Medium minute

Price

How it is priced
BuildhoundFlat, 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.
CircleCICredits for each minute200 credits a minute for macOS, 10 for Linux, at $15 for 25,000 credits.
macOS
BuildhoundYour MacA fresh macOS VM per job; Apple allows two per Mac.
CircleCI$0.12 a minuteM4 Pro Medium, 6 CPU, 28 GB, on Performance and Scale.
Linux
BuildhoundYour Mac or Linux boxA fresh Linux VM per job, arm64 on a Mac.
CircleCI$0.006 a minuteDocker Medium, 2 CPU, 4 GB.
Windows
BuildhoundNot yetWindows jobs stay on GitHub-hosted.
CircleCIWindows VMMedium, 4 CPU and 16 GB.

Where it runs

Machines
BuildhoundYoursA spare Mac, a Linux box, or a laptop while plugged in and not in use.
CircleCICircleCI's machines
Secrets
BuildhoundOn your hardwareOnly on a machine a person marked Trusted.
CircleCIOn CircleCI's machinesLike every hosted runner.

When things change

Setup
BuildhoundOne prompt to your coding agentOr two commands by hand.
CircleCI.circleci/config.ymlCircleCI's own configuration, not GitHub Actions.

One line in runs-on

CircleCI jobs run from .circleci/config.yml, not from runs-on in GitHub Actions.

Buildhoundruns-on: ${{ vars.BUILDHOUND_MACOS || 'macos-latest' }}The job runs on your machine while one can take it, and on GitHub-hosted when none can.

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.

Set up by hand
  • The Buildhound agent holds no GitHub credential
  • A fresh VM per job, off your network
  • Your agent prepares, you approve
  • How security works