# Buildhound vs Depot

> Depot sells fast GitHub Actions runners on AWS in monthly plans, with per-second tracking. Buildhound runs your jobs 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 |
| [Depot](https://depot.dev/docs/github-actions/runner-types), checked 16 October 2026 (8 vCPU, list price, at least the $200 plan) | $200 | $400 | $800 |

- At 2,000 minutes: One Mac you already have costs $24 a month on Team. Depot costs $200, and GitHub-hosted $124.
- At 5,000 minutes: One Mac you already have costs $24 a month on Team. Depot costs $400, and GitHub-hosted $310.
- At 10,000 minutes: One Mac you already have costs $24 a month on Team. Depot 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 |
| Buildhound Team (one machine you already have) | $24 | $24 | $24 |
| [Depot](https://depot.dev/docs/github-actions/runner-types), checked 16 October 2026 (2 vCPU, list price, at least the $20 plan) | $20 | $30 | $60 |
| [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: Depot costs less here, $20 against $24 for one machine on Team. One machine pays off from about 4,000 minutes a month.
- At 5,000 minutes: One machine you already have costs $24 a month on Team. Depot costs $30, and GitHub-hosted $30.
- At 10,000 minutes: One machine you already have costs $24 a month on Team. Depot costs $60, and GitHub-hosted $60.

## Choose Depot when

- Nobody on the team has a machine to spare.
- You want large Linux or Windows runners and unlimited jobs at once.
- You also build container images and want one vendor for both.

## 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 4,000.
- You want GitHub-hosted kept as the fallback when a machine is offline.

## Side by side

Depot's side is from its own pages ([source](https://depot.dev/docs/github-actions/runner-types)), checked 16 October 2026.

### Price

| | Buildhound | Depot |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 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. | 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. |
| macOS | Your Mac. A fresh macOS VM per job; Apple allows two per Mac. | $0.08 a minute. M4 or M2, 8 vCPU, on the $200 plan and above. |
| Linux | Your Mac or Linux box. A fresh Linux VM per job, arm64 on a Mac. | $0.006 a minute. 2 vCPU, x64 or arm64. |
| Windows | Not yet. Windows jobs stay on GitHub-hosted. | $0.008 a minute. 2 vCPU. |

### Where it runs

| | Buildhound | Depot |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Machines | Yours. A spare Mac, a Linux box, or a laptop while plugged in and not in use. | EC2 on AWS. In Depot's account, or yours. |
| Each job | A fresh VM, destroyed after. It reaches the internet and never your network. | A fresh EC2 instance. Never reused. |
| Secrets | On your hardware. Only on a machine a person marked Trusted. | On Depot's machines. Or in your AWS account. |

### When things change

| | Buildhound | Depot |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Runners unavailable | New jobs route to the healthy side. GitHub-hosted, within about two minutes; a stuck job is re-run. | Jobs wait for Depot. 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. | Unlimited. macOS capacity can queue at peak, 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

Depot:

```yaml
runs-on: depot-ubuntu-24.04
```

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 Depot. Source: https://buildhound.sh/compare/depot.