RunsOn vs Blacksmith for GitHub Actions runners
RunsOn vs Blacksmith is a choice between two cost models rather than two rate cards: RunsOn is a flat annual license from 300 euros that installs into your own AWS account and leaves the compute on your AWS bill, and Blacksmith is a managed fleet at $0.004 a Linux minute with 3,000 free minutes a month. The rate comparison favors RunsOn heavily and it only counts if you want an AWS footprint to…
RunsOn and Blacksmith are two pricing models for GitHub Actions runners, as opposed to the traditional rate cards. RunsOn is a flat annual license of 300 euros, which installs into your own AWS account and utilizes the compute on your AWS bill. On the other hand, Blacksmith offers a managed fleet at $0.004 per Linux minute, with a free 3,000 minutes a month allocation. The comparison favors RunsOn due to its lower cost, provided you wish to own an AWS footprint.
Under the RunsOn pricing model, 10,000 Linux minutes at 2 vCPU plus 2,000 macOS minutes a month cost approximately $29, which is equivalent to the $350 annual license spread over 12 months. In contrast, Blacksmith charges $0.008 per minute for 4 vCPU Linux x64 and $0.005 per minute for 4 vCPU Linux x64, translating to a monthly total of $160 with no extra macOS support.
Latchkey, another pricing model, charges $0.0025 per minute for Linux x64 and offers 2 to 32 vCPU options in Linux and arm64, with Windows Server 2025 in public beta. The monthly price ranges from $5 to $49, depending on the plan, and provides a 15-day trial with 2,000 included minutes, 4,000 minutes for the Launch plan, and 6,000 minutes for the Scale plan.
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