Best GitHub Actions Runner Alternatives for Indie Hackers in 2026

Two GitHub Actions runner providers closed this year. BuildJet stopped running jobs on March 31, and Cirrus CI shut down on June 1. BuildJet said GitHub added faster hardware, larger runners and native ARM, so "the gap we set out to fill has largely closed."

GitHub also cut hosted runner prices by up to 39% on January 1 and postponed its planned fee for self-hosted runners.

So do you still need an alternative? Sometimes. If your Actions bill keeps growing, or a Docker build eats ten minutes per push, these are the runners worth moving to. Every price below comes from the vendor's own page this week.

Quick Verdict

Do You Actually Need to Leave GitHub's Runners?

Check the numbers first. Public repos run free on standard runners. Private repos get 2,000 free minutes a month on the Free plan and 3,000 on Pro, and a 2-core Linux runner then costs $0.006 a minute.

At five minutes per run, 2,000 minutes covers 400 pushes a month. Run 10,000 minutes a month on the Free plan, though, and you pay for 8,000 of them, which is $48.

That's where switching starts to pay. Below it, stay put.

Ubicloud

Ubicloud is the cheapest managed option here. A 2 vCPU x64 runner costs $0.00125 a minute on standard machines and $0.002 on premium, which new accounts get by default. The 2 vCPU arm64 runner is $0.00125. Every account gets a $2.50 monthly credit, which Ubicloud's pricing page says equals 1,250 minutes.

Setup is one GitHub App install and one changed line (ubicloud-standard-2 instead of ubuntu-latest). Those 10,000 minutes cost about $17.50 on premium after the credit.

Runners live in German data centers, which suits EU founders.

Who should NOT use this? Anyone who needs macOS or Windows builds. Ubicloud's runner pricing covers Linux x64 and arm64 only. It also needs a credit card on file before you can run anything.

Pick this if price per minute is the whole decision.

Blacksmith

Blacksmith is the closest thing to a drop-in replacement. You install the app and change runs-on: ubuntu-latest to runs-on: blacksmith-2vcpu-ubuntu-2404. Pricing is $0.004 a minute for Ubuntu x64, $0.0025 for Ubuntu ARM and $0.08 for macOS M4, with 3,000 free minutes a month.

Blacksmith says its hardware runs jobs about twice as fast as GitHub's. That claim is theirs, so measure your own workflow before you trust it. Docker layer caching is an add-on at $0.50 per GB per month.

Who should NOT use this? Solo developers on a personal GitHub account. Blacksmith's quickstart says it "is limited to GitHub organizations and not available for personal repositories." Creating a free org fixes that, but it's an extra step.

Pick this if your repos already live in an org and you want the free minutes.

Depot

Depot sells speed, not cheap minutes. The Developer plan costs $20 a month and includes 2,000 GitHub Actions minutes, 500 Docker build minutes and 25 GB of cache storage. Extra runner minutes cost $0.006, the same as GitHub's own rate.

So why pay? Depot's Docker builds run on its own builders with a persistent layer cache, so unchanged layers aren't rebuilt on every push. If a docker build step dominates every run, that's the fix. Swap the label to depot-ubuntu-24.04 for the runners.

Who should NOT use this? Anyone whose CI is mostly unit tests. You'll pay $20 for minutes GitHub was giving you free.

Pick this if your CI time goes into Docker image builds.

RunsOn

RunsOn puts the runners in your own AWS account. You pay AWS for spot or on-demand instances by the second, with no RunsOn markup. Then RunsOn charges a flat license, starting at €300 a year for commercial use. Personal and open-source projects get it free.

RunsOn estimates the control plane costs about $7 a month in AWS fees. Your code never leaves your account.

Who should NOT use this? Anyone without an AWS account they're comfortable running. You own the setup, the IAM permissions and the bill.

Pick this if you're already on AWS and want cheap spot runners.

Self-Hosted Runner

GitHub's own self-hosted runner is free to use with Actions. You pay only for the machine. If you already run a VPS for staging or for Forge, Ploi or Coolify, the spare CPU is right there.

The catch is security. GitHub's secure use reference says self-hosted runners "should almost never be used for public repositories," because anyone can open a pull request and run code on your box. Our AI coding agent security tools roundup covers similar risks from the agent side.

Who should NOT use this? Anyone with a public repo, or anyone who doesn't want to patch and clean the runner machine.

Pick this if your repos are private and you have a server that sits idle most of the day.

How Do You Choose?

Start with last month's Actions usage in your GitHub billing settings.

Under the free minutes means you stay on GitHub. If Docker builds are the slow part, try Depot. Already on AWS? RunsOn. If you build macOS or Windows apps, Blacksmith covers both. For everything else on Linux, Ubicloud is the cheapest managed option. Private repos and an idle server? A self-hosted runner costs nothing extra.

Namespace didn't make the list. It has a pay-as-you-go plan, but its plans with included minutes start at $100 a month, which is priced for teams.

Which One Wins?

Ubicloud. It's the cheapest managed runner, it covers both x64 and ARM on Linux, and the switch is one line. Blacksmith is the pick for orgs that want free minutes or need macOS, and Depot is the one to try when Docker builds are the bottleneck.

But check your usage first. Most indie hackers on GitHub's free minutes don't need any of these. If you're also rethinking where the code lives, see our GitHub alternatives post.

Found a better option? Let me know on Twitter @devtoolpicks.