Buildhound vs Namespace

Namespace runs GitHub Actions on its own hardware, by the minute or in monthly plans, with caching built in. 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

What a month costs

Minutes a month

Buildhound Teamone machine you already have$24
Namespace4 vCPU, list price$300
GitHub-hostedmacos-latest, list price$310

One Mac you already have costs $24 a month on Team. Namespace costs $300, 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 Namespace when

Nobody on the team has a machine to spare.
You want recent Apple silicon without owning it.
You want Windows, large Linux runners and caching from one vendor.

Choose Buildhound when

You already have a Mac or a Linux box, even a laptop you work on.
Your macOS CI runs past about 400 minutes a month, or Linux past about 8,000.
You want GitHub-hosted kept as the fallback when a machine is offline.

Side by side

Namespace 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

NamespaceHosted runners by the minute or a plan$0.06a macOS minute, pay as you go

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.; NamespaceBy the minute or a plan$100 a month with 100,000 unit minutes or $250 a month with 250,000 unit minutes, about two thirds of the pay-as-you-go price.
macOS: BuildhoundYour MacA fresh macOS VM per job; Apple allows two per Mac.; Namespace$0.06 a minuteM5 Max or M4 Pro, 4 vCPU, pay as you go.
Linux: BuildhoundYour Mac or Linux boxA fresh Linux VM per job, arm64 on a Mac.; Namespace$0.003 a minute2 vCPU, pay as you go.
Windows: BuildhoundNot yetWindows jobs stay on GitHub-hosted.; Namespace$0.006 a minute2 vCPU, pay as you go.

Where it runs

Machines: BuildhoundYoursA spare Mac, a Linux box, or a laptop while plugged in and not in use.; NamespaceNamespace's hardwareAt several sites.
Secrets: BuildhoundOn your hardwareOnly on a machine a person marked Trusted.; NamespaceOn Namespace'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.; NamespaceJobs wait for NamespaceMoving them to GitHub-hosted is a change to runs-on.
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.; NamespaceCapped by vCPU per planSuch as 12 macOS vCPU on the free Developer plan.
Setup: BuildhoundOne prompt to your coding agentOr two commands by hand.; NamespaceIts GitHub App and a profileOn a personal account or an organisation.

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.

Namespaceruns-on: namespace-profile-<name>The job runs where Namespace 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