Buildhound vs GitHub-hosted runners

GitHub-hosted runners are the default: nothing to set up, billed by the minute in private repositories. Buildhound runs the same jobs on machines you already have, for a flat price per machine, and keeps GitHub-hosted as the fallback.

Set up by hand

Checked 15 October 2026
No referral agreement

What a month costs

Minutes a month

Buildhound Teamone machine you already have$24
GitHub-hostedmacos-latest, list price$310

One Mac you already have costs $24 a month on Team. GitHub-hosted runners costs $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 GitHub-hosted runners when

Your CI fits in the included minutes.
Nobody on the team has a machine to spare.
You need Windows, or many jobs at once without owning anything.

Choose Buildhound when

macOS jobs queue behind the limit of 5 at a time.
Agents open more pull requests than the included minutes cover.
You have a recent Mac that runs the same jobs about 3x faster.

Side by side

GitHub-hosted runners from its own pages, checked 15 October 2026

Two ways to run the same workflow

Clean runners on machines you already have$24a machine a month on Team

GitHub-hosted runnersGitHub's own machines, by the minute$0.062a macOS 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.; GitHub-hosted runnersBy the minuteIn 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.
macOS: BuildhoundYour MacA fresh macOS VM per job; Apple allows two per Mac.; GitHub-hosted runners$0.062 a minutemacos-latest, 3 vCPU.
Linux: BuildhoundYour Mac or Linux boxA fresh Linux VM per job, arm64 on a Mac.; GitHub-hosted runners$0.006 a minuteubuntu-latest, 2 vCPU x64; arm64 at $0.005.
Windows: BuildhoundNot yetWindows jobs stay on GitHub-hosted.; GitHub-hosted runners$0.01 a minutewindows-latest, 2 vCPU.

Where it runs

Machines: BuildhoundYoursA spare Mac, a Linux box, or a laptop while plugged in and not in use.; GitHub-hosted runnersGitHub's machinesHosted by GitHub.
Each job: BuildhoundA fresh VM, destroyed afterIt reaches the internet and never your network.; GitHub-hosted runnersA fresh VMFor each job.
Secrets: BuildhoundOn your hardwareOnly on a machine a person marked Trusted.; GitHub-hosted runnersOn GitHub's machinesLike every hosted runner.

When things change

Runners unavailable: BuildhoundNew jobs route to the healthy sideGitHub-hosted, within about two minutes; a stuck job is re-run.; GitHub-hosted runnersJobs queueUntil GitHub-hosted recovers.
Jobs at once: BuildhoundAs many as your machines holdSuch 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.; GitHub-hosted runners5 macOS jobs at a timeOn Free, Pro and Team, 50 on Enterprise; the rest queue.
Setup: BuildhoundOne prompt to your coding agentOr two commands by hand.; GitHub-hosted runnersNoneIt is the default runs-on label.

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.

GitHub-hosted runnersruns-on: macos-latestThe job runs where GitHub-hosted runners runs it.

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