# Buildhound vs StarSling

> StarSling runs Linux GitHub Actions jobs on its own AMD EPYC servers by the minute, with agents that open pull requests to speed up your workflows. Buildhound runs your jobs, macOS included, on machines you already have, for a flat price per machine, and its CI report and fix pull requests are free.

## 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 a flat $10 a month on Pro.

| Option | 2,000 minutes | 5,000 minutes | 10,000 minutes |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Buildhound Pro (one machine you already have) | $10 | $10 | $10 |
| [StarSling](https://starsling.dev/pricing), checked 20 October 2026 (2 vCPU, list price) | $8 | $20 | $40 |
| [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: StarSling costs less here, $8 against $10 for one machine on Pro. One machine pays off from about 2,500 minutes a month.
- At 5,000 minutes: One machine you already have costs $10 a month on Pro. StarSling costs $20, and GitHub-hosted $30.
- At 10,000 minutes: One machine you already have costs $10 a month on Pro. StarSling costs $40, and GitHub-hosted $60.

## Choose StarSling when

- You want agents that read your runs and open pull requests to shard tests, fix caching and right-size jobs.
- You need GPU runners, or Linux machines up to 64 vCPU.
- Your CI is Linux only and nobody on the team has a machine to spare.

## Choose Buildhound when

- Your CI includes macOS, which StarSling does not run.
- Your Linux CI runs past about 2,500 minutes a month.
- You want GitHub-hosted kept as the fallback when a machine is offline.

## Side by side

StarSling's side is from its own pages ([source](https://starsling.dev/pricing)), checked 20 October 2026.

### Price

| | Buildhound | StarSling |
| --- | --- | --- |
| How it is priced | Flat, per machine. $10 a connected machine a month on Pro, on any account. Free for public repositories and one private one. Organisations that join at launch keep $10 a machine a month for 12 months. | By the minute. 2,000 free minutes in the first month only. Queue time is not billed; its agents come with paid usage. |
| macOS | Your Mac. A fresh macOS VM per job; Apple allows two per Mac. | Not offered. |
| Linux | Your Mac or Linux box. A fresh Linux VM per job, arm64 on a Mac, or a fresh container on a Linux box without KVM. | $0.004 a minute. 2 vCPU x64; the default label is 4 vCPU at $0.008, up to 64 vCPU. GPU runners from $0.0252. |
| Windows | Not yet. Windows jobs stay on GitHub-hosted. | Not offered. |

### Where it runs

| | Buildhound | StarSling |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Machines | Yours. A spare Mac, a Linux box, or a laptop while plugged in and not in use. | StarSling's servers. 5th Gen AMD EPYC, Ubuntu 26.04 or 24.04. |
| Each job | A fresh VM, destroyed after. It reaches the internet and never your network. A Linux box without KVM uses a fresh container and never takes secrets. | An ephemeral runner. For each job. |
| Secrets | On your hardware. Only on a machine a person marked Trusted. | On StarSling's machines. Like every hosted runner. |

### When things change

| | Buildhound | StarSling |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Runners unavailable | New jobs route to the healthy side. GitHub-hosted, within three minutes; with fallback on, a stuck job is re-run. | Jobs wait for StarSling. 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. By its pricing page. |
| Setup | One prompt to your coding agent. Or two commands by hand. | Its GitHub App and a label. Optimisation pull requests are off by default. |

## One line in runs-on

StarSling:

```yaml
runs-on: starsling-ubuntu-26.04
```

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 StarSling. Source: https://buildhound.sh/compare/starsling.