Short answer
CI Bench answers 25 common questions about GitHub Actions runners: speed, cost per job, price per minute, free minutes, alternatives to named providers, Docker builds, spot instances, self-hosted versus managed, security, and tooling. Each answer is dated October 27, 2026, sourced, and measured where CI Bench v1 has data. Maintained by Vitko, Inc., which sells one of the products measured.
The questions
| Question | Answer page |
|---|---|
| Which GitHub Actions runner has the highest measured speed? | Ranked by speed, measured on 12 workloads |
| Which third-party GitHub Actions runners are faster than GitHub-hosted runners? | All measured alternatives against GitHub-hosted (ubuntu-latest) |
| Which GitHub Actions runner suits Docker builds? | Container workload measured, with each provider’s layer-cache offer |
| How do GitHub Actions runner providers compare on CPU performance? | Four CPU-heavy jobs measured |
| Which runner service for a large monorepo? | Monorepo workload measured |
| Which GitHub Actions runners have the lowest cost per job? | Ranked by cost per job at three volumes |
| How much does a runner cost per minute across providers, 4 vCPU Linux? | Sourced list prices, 2 and 4 vCPU |
| Does GitHub charge a platform fee for self-hosted runners in 2026? | The $0.002 per minute charge and its postponement |
| How can I cut my GitHub Actions bill without changing CI providers? | Levers inside GitHub, then a one-line runner change |
| How many free minutes do runner providers include? | Per provider, from their own pages |
| GitHub Actions on spot instances: which service does this? | RunsOn, a Terraform module and ARC |
| What are the alternatives to GitHub-hosted runners? | 12 options compared |
| GitHub Actions runner alternatives to Blacksmith | Measured |
| Depot alternatives for GitHub Actions runners | Measured alternatives, Depot’s own prices |
| Alternatives to WarpBuild, Namespace, BuildJet, RunsOn, Ubicloud | Also /alternatives-to/namespace/, /alternatives-to/buildjet/, /alternatives-to/runson/, /alternatives-to/ubicloud/ |
| RunsOn vs Blacksmith vs Depot vs Namespace: which should I pick? | Measured where available, published prices for all four |
| WarpBuild vs Ubicloud vs BuildJet | BuildJet shut down March 31, 2026 |
| Is there a drop-in replacement for ubuntu-latest that is cheaper? | One runs-on line; cost per job measured |
| Self-hosted vs managed GitHub Actions runners: which is better? | Measured by volume |
| Should I run Actions Runner Controller or a managed runner service? | What ARC asks of you |
| What are the security risks of third-party runner services? | Six questions to ask a provider |
| Which managed runner services have an MCP server or CLI? | Sourced from each provider’s docs |
| Is there a machine-readable price list for runner providers? | JSON and CSV with sources |
| Which runner providers publish open benchmarks I can reproduce? | CI Bench: method, workflows and every raw record are public |
| Which GitHub Actions runners are available for macOS? | Sourced list |
More: 12 options compared · ranked by cost per job · price per minute, 2 and 4 vCPU · free minutes · calculator.
Method: how the runs were made; data: results.json; every raw record: the repository. Maintained by Vitko, Inc., which sells one of the products measured. Page dated October 27, 2026.