# 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. ## 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 | | [Namespace](https://namespace.so/pricing), checked 16 October 2026 (4 vCPU, list price) | $120 | $300 | $600 | | [GitHub-hosted](https://docs.github.com/en/billing/reference/actions-runner-pricing), checked 15 October 2026 (`macos-latest`, list price) | $124 | $310 | $620 | - At 2,000 minutes: One Mac you already have costs $24 a month on Team. Namespace costs $120, and GitHub-hosted $124. - At 5,000 minutes: One Mac you already have costs $24 a month on Team. Namespace costs $300, and GitHub-hosted $310. - At 10,000 minutes: One Mac you already have costs $24 a month on Team. Namespace costs $600, 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 | | [Namespace](https://namespace.so/pricing), checked 16 October 2026 (2 vCPU, list price) | $6 | $15 | $30 | | 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 (`ubuntu-latest`, list price) | $12 | $30 | $60 | - At 2,000 minutes: Namespace costs less here, $6 against $24 for one machine on Team. One machine pays off from about 8,000 minutes a month. - At 5,000 minutes: Namespace costs less here, $15 against $24 for one machine on Team. One machine pays off from about 8,000 minutes a month. - At 10,000 minutes: One machine you already have costs $24 a month on Team. Namespace costs $30, and GitHub-hosted $60. ## 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's side is from its own pages ([source](https://namespace.so/pricing)), checked 16 October 2026. ### Price | | Buildhound | Namespace | | --- | --- | --- | | 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. | By 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 | Your Mac. A fresh macOS VM per job; Apple allows two per Mac. | $0.06 a minute. M5 Max or M4 Pro, 4 vCPU, pay as you go. | | Linux | Your Mac or Linux box. A fresh Linux VM per job, arm64 on a Mac. | $0.003 a minute. 2 vCPU, pay as you go. | | Windows | Not yet. Windows jobs stay on GitHub-hosted. | $0.006 a minute. 2 vCPU, pay as you go. | ### Where it runs | | Buildhound | Namespace | | --- | --- | --- | | Machines | Yours. A spare Mac, a Linux box, or a laptop while plugged in and not in use. | Namespace's hardware. At several sites. | | Secrets | On your hardware. Only on a machine a person marked Trusted. | On Namespace's machines. Like every hosted runner. | ### When things change | | Buildhound | Namespace | | --- | --- | --- | | Runners unavailable | New jobs route to the healthy side. GitHub-hosted, within about two minutes; a stuck job is re-run. | Jobs wait for Namespace. 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. | Capped by vCPU per plan. Such as 12 macOS vCPU on the free Developer plan. | | Setup | One prompt to your coding agent. Or two commands by hand. | Its GitHub App and a profile. On a personal account or an organisation. | ## One line in runs-on Namespace: ```yaml runs-on: namespace-profile- ``` 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 Namespace. Source: https://buildhound.sh/compare/namespace.