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Buildhound vs Manzanita

Manzanita rents macOS runners on its own Macs for a flat monthly price, each job in a fresh VM. Buildhound gives the same clean VM per job on a Mac you already have.

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

What a month costs

Minutes a month
  • Buildhound Teamone machine you already have$24
  • Manzanitasold by the runner$149
  • GitHub-hostedmacos-latest, list price$310

One Mac you already have costs $24 a month on Team. Manzanita costs $149, 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 Manzanita when

  • Nobody on the team has a Mac to spare.
  • You want a clean VM per macOS job at a flat price.
  • You would rather not buy hardware.

Choose Buildhound when

  • You already have a Mac, where the same clean VM per job costs $24 a month on Team.
  • Linux jobs should run on the same machine.
  • You want GitHub-hosted kept as the fallback when the Mac is offline.

Side by side

Manzanita 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
ManzanitamacOS runners rented by the month$149a runner a month

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.
ManzanitaFlat, per runner$149 a month, no per-minute charge; past 15,000 minutes a runner in 30 days it asks for a conversation.
macOS
BuildhoundYour MacA fresh macOS VM per job; Apple allows two per Mac.
ManzanitaM4 Pro, 6 vCPU, 22 GBOne job at a time per runner, up to two hours each.
Linux
BuildhoundYour Mac or Linux boxA fresh Linux VM per job, arm64 on a Mac.
ManzanitaNot offered
Windows
BuildhoundNot yetWindows jobs stay on GitHub-hosted.
ManzanitaNot offered

Where it runs

Machines
BuildhoundYoursA spare Mac, a Linux box, or a laptop while plugged in and not in use.
ManzanitaManzanita's MacsIn Menlo Park, California.
Each job
BuildhoundA fresh VM, destroyed afterIt reaches the internet and never your network.
ManzanitaA fresh VMDestroyed after each job.
Secrets
BuildhoundOn your hardwareOnly on a machine a person marked Trusted.
ManzanitaOn Manzanita's Macs

When things change

Runners unavailable
BuildhoundNew jobs route to the healthy sideGitHub-hosted, within about two minutes; a stuck job is re-run.
ManzanitaA runs-on variableIts docs suggest one with a GitHub-hosted default.
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.
ManzanitaOne per runnerMore at once means more runners.
Setup
BuildhoundOne prompt to your coding agentOr two commands by hand.
ManzanitaIts GitHub App and a labelAn invitation-only pilot.

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.

Manzanitaruns-on: manzanita-standardThe job runs where Manzanita 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