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Buildhound vs Ubicloud

Ubicloud runs Linux GitHub Actions runners on its own servers at a fraction of GitHub's price. Buildhound runs your jobs, macOS included, 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
  • Ubicloud2 vCPU, list price$6.25
  • Buildhound Teamone machine you already have$24
  • GitHub-hostedubuntu-latest, list price$30

Ubicloud costs less here, $6.25 against $24 for one machine on Team. One machine pays off from about 19,200 minutes a month.

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 Ubicloud when

  • Your CI is Linux only.
  • It costs less than one machine on Team until about 19,200 minutes a month.
  • Its monthly credit covers light use.

Choose Buildhound when

  • Your CI includes macOS, which Ubicloud does not offer.
  • Your Linux minutes run past that line and you already have a machine.
  • You want GitHub-hosted kept as the fallback when a machine is offline.

Side by side

Ubicloud 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
UbicloudLow-cost hosted Linux runners$0.00125a Linux 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.
UbicloudBy the minuteWith a $2.50 credit each month.
macOS
BuildhoundYour MacA fresh macOS VM per job; Apple allows two per Mac.
UbicloudNot offered
Linux
BuildhoundYour Mac or Linux boxA fresh Linux VM per job, arm64 on a Mac.
Ubicloud$0.00125 a minute2 vCPU x64 or arm64 on Standard; new accounts start on the faster Premium tier, which costs more.
Windows
BuildhoundNot yetWindows jobs stay on GitHub-hosted.
UbicloudNot offered

Where it runs

Machines
BuildhoundYoursA spare Mac, a Linux box, or a laptop while plugged in and not in use.
UbicloudUbicloud's serversIn Germany, with an optional US fleet.
Each job
BuildhoundA fresh VM, destroyed afterIt reaches the internet and never your network.
UbicloudA clean VMFor each job.
Secrets
BuildhoundOn your hardwareOnly on a machine a person marked Trusted.
UbicloudOn Ubicloud'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.
UbicloudJobs wait for UbicloudMoving them to GitHub-hosted is a change to runs-on.
Setup
BuildhoundOne prompt to your coding agentOr two commands by hand.
UbicloudIts GitHub App and a 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.

Ubicloudruns-on: ubicloud-standard-2The job runs where Ubicloud 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