buildhound
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Buildhound vs Cirun

Cirun creates GitHub Actions runners in your own cloud account, or on your machines with its agent, for a monthly fee by repository. Buildhound runs your jobs on machines you already have, for a flat price per machine.

Set up by hand
  • Checked 16 October 2026
  • No referral agreement

At a glance

Clean runners on machines you already have$24a machine a month on Team
CirunRunners in your own cloud, by repository$29a month for 3 private repositories

Cirun publishes no price we can put beside a machine, so this page compares how each works.

Choose the one that fits

Choose Cirun when

  • You want runners in your own cloud account.
  • You want GPUs, or a provider such as Hetzner.
  • You prefer a fee by repository to a fee by machine.

Choose Buildhound when

  • The machines are ones you already have, laptops included.
  • Laptops should take jobs only while plugged in and not in use.
  • You want GitHub-hosted kept as the fallback when no machine can take a job.

Side by side

Cirun from its own pages, checked 16 October 2026

Two ways to run the same workflow
Clean runners on machines you already have$24a machine a month on Team
CirunRunners in your own cloud, by repository$29a month for 3 private repositories

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.
CirunA 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.
macOS
BuildhoundYour MacA fresh macOS VM per job; Apple allows two per Mac.
CirunYour own MacsIn VMs through Lume.
Linux
BuildhoundYour Mac or Linux boxA fresh Linux VM per job, arm64 on a Mac.
CirunYour cloudOr VMs on your own machines.

Where it runs

Machines
BuildhoundYoursA spare Mac, a Linux box, or a laptop while plugged in and not in use.
CirunYour cloud accountSuch as AWS, GCP, Azure or Hetzner, or your machines with its agent.
Each job
BuildhoundA fresh VM, destroyed afterIt reaches the internet and never your network.
CirunA fresh runnerDestroyed after the job.
Secrets
BuildhoundOn your hardwareOnly on a machine a person marked Trusted.
CirunIn your cloud or on your machines

When things change

Setup
BuildhoundOne prompt to your coding agentOr two commands by hand.
CirunA .cirun.yml and its GitHub AppThen a Cirun label in runs-on.

One line in runs-on

Both ask you to change the runner label in your workflow. Your coding agent makes the Buildhound change in a pull request.

Cirunruns-on: cirun-<label>--${{ github.run_id }}The job runs where Cirun runs it.
Buildhoundruns-on: ${{ vars.BUILDHOUND_LINUX || 'ubuntu-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