WarpBuild vs GitHub-Hosted Runners
WarpBuild and GitHub-hosted runners compared on per-minute price, concurrency caps, runner sizes, macOS depth, and BYOC, with every GitHub number linked.
Last updated:
WarpBuild runs your GitHub Actions jobs on its own runner fleet, and you switch by changing the runs-on label in a workflow file. GitHub-hosted runners remain the better choice for public repositories and for teams that stay inside GitHub's included minutes. WarpBuild is ahead on per-minute price at matched shapes, on concurrency, and on running runners inside your own cloud account.
Every GitHub fact below is quoted from GitHub's own documentation, linked where it appears, and was checked on 2026-08-13. WarpBuild figures come from the pricing page and the cloud runner catalog. Every factual correction to this page is dated on the comparison changelog.
Arrived with a different question? GitHub Actions larger runner alternatives covers the wider vendor set, and migrate from GitHub-hosted runners to WarpBuild has the label diff, the cache notes, and the rollback steps.
What GitHub-Hosted Runners Do Well
Zero setup, and they are the default. Each GitHub-hosted runner is a fresh virtual machine with the runner application and tooling preinstalled, updated weekly, with no installation, cluster, or account linking of any kind. That is documented on GitHub's hosted runner concepts page.
Free for public repositories, with a published allowance. GitHub states that "GitHub Actions usage is free for self-hosted runners and for public repositories that use standard GitHub-hosted runners" on the Actions billing page. Public repositories also get the larger 4 vCPU and 16 GB Linux and Windows shapes rather than the 2 vCPU and 8 GB shapes private repositories get, per the hosted runners reference. For an open source project on standard runners, no vendor beats free. The one caveat GitHub states in the same billing page: larger runners are always charged, even on public repositories.
Included minutes on every plan. 2,000 Actions minutes a month on Free, 3,000 on Pro and Team, and 50,000 on GitHub Enterprise Cloud, reset at the start of each month, per the Actions billing page.
Native integration. Runners, billing, permissions, secrets, OIDC, and metrics all live in the same product as the repository. GitHub ships usage metrics and performance metrics covering job run time, queue time, and failure rate at repository and organization level, broken down by workflow, repository, runtime OS, and runner type, per the Actions metrics docs.
Platform breadth. Linux x64 and arm64, Windows x64, the windows-11-arm and windows-11-vs2026-arm images, macOS on Intel and on Apple Silicon, plus larger runner classes carrying a Tesla T4, per the hosted runners reference and the larger runners reference. WarpBuild offers Linux x64, Linux ARM64, macOS, and Windows runners and does not offer the last two GitHub classes, so this row belongs to GitHub.
Open, auditable images. Every image manifest is public, per image, with exact tool and Xcode version lists and build IDs, at actions/runner-images.
A high, public shipping cadence. Eight Actions entries landed on the GitHub changelog between 2026-06-25 and 2026-07-30 alone.
A first-party management API. Organization-level hosted runners, custom image definitions, machine sizes, platforms, and limits all have REST endpoints, per the hosted runners API reference.
Where WarpBuild Is Ahead
macOS price at a matched shape
GitHub publishes per-minute list prices, so this comparison uses real numbers on both sides. The arithmetic is in Cost Comparison below. The headline: the 6 vCPU, 22 GB WarpBuild macOS runner costs $0.08 per minute against $0.102 per minute for the largest GitHub-hosted macOS ARM64 runner at 5 vCPU and 14 GB, which is 22 percent lower list price, and it carries 8 GB more memory. GitHub list price checked on 2026-08-13 at actions-minute-multipliers.
macOS image and Xcode depth
WarpBuild publishes macOS 14, macOS 15, and macOS 26 images, each in a 6 vCPU and a 12 vCPU size, per the cloud runner catalog. The macOS 26 image ships Xcode 27.0 (build 27A5194q) with iOS, tvOS, watchOS, and visionOS 27.0 simulator runtimes, on top of the Xcode versions already present in the upstream GitHub image. On GitHub's side, macOS 26 and macOS 15 are GA, macOS 14 is deprecated, and the xcode-27 image is in preview, per actions/runner-images, checked on 2026-08-13. So the counted difference today is one extra Xcode line, generally available rather than in preview, on an image that otherwise matches GitHub's.
Concurrency
GitHub publishes hard caps per plan at Actions limits, checked on 2026-08-13.
| Runner class | Plan | Concurrent jobs | Concurrent macOS jobs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | Free | 20 | 5 |
| Standard | Pro | 40 | 5 |
| Standard | Team | 60 | 5 |
| Standard | Enterprise | 500 | 50 |
| Larger | Team | 1,000 | 5 |
| Larger | Enterprise | 1,000 | 50 |
Source: docs.github.com Actions limits, checked 2026-08-13. GitHub notes on the same page that the macOS cap is shared across standard and larger runners, so a Team organization stays at 5 concurrent macOS jobs whichever class it picks.
Run as many jobs as your workflows need on WarpBuild. Generally available Linux and Windows runners do not have plan-level concurrency caps, and capacity adjusts dynamically. For a macOS fleet that needs sustained high concurrency, WarpBuild asks you to contact support first so capacity is staged ahead of the run, per the cloud runner docs.
Fair reading of this row: 500 concurrent standard jobs on GitHub Enterprise is a large number in absolute terms. The WarpBuild advantage is the absence of a ceiling and the absence of a plan gate, rather than any suggestion that GitHub's caps are small.
Runner sizes and how they are gated
GitHub's default labels on a private repository give you 2 vCPU and 8 GB on Linux and Windows, per the hosted runners reference. Anything bigger means larger runners, which GitHub documents as available to organizations and enterprises on the Team and Enterprise Cloud plans, and which never draw on included minutes.
WarpBuild publishes 2, 4, 8, 16, and 32 vCPU Linux runners on x64 and ARM64, 4 to 32 vCPU Windows runners, and 6 and 12 vCPU macOS runners, on every account, with no plan gate. Sizes and labels are in the cloud runner catalog.
State the top end plainly: GitHub's larger runners reach 96 vCPU and 384 GB, per the larger runners reference, above WarpBuild's largest 32 vCPU and 128 GB general runner. For work that needs more than 32 cores, WarpBuild's answer is remote Docker builders, which reach 192 vCPU and 384 GB for container builds, rather than a larger general-purpose runner.
Configuration is the other half of this row. WarpBuild runners take dynamic labels for snapshot runners and nested virtualization, and BYOC deployments add custom VM images, static IPs, and spot instances, per the feature matrix.
BYOC and data residency
BYOC runs on AWS, GCP, and Azure, with Terraform support for BYOC on AWS. Runners boot inside your own cloud account and your data stays in the account you already audit. See the BYOC docs and the Terraform docs.
GitHub-hosted runners have no equivalent. GitHub states that it "hosts Linux and Windows runners on virtual machines in Microsoft Azure" and hosts macOS runners in Azure data centers, on the hosted runner concepts page; no customer-selectable region for hosted runner compute is documented, and nothing runs in your account. Bring-your-own-cloud for GitHub-hosted runners was verified absent on 2026-08-13. GitHub Enterprise Cloud with data residency is a separate product on GHE.com covering the EU, Australia, the US, and Japan, per GitHub's data residency docs; that page does not state where Actions runner compute executes, so treat it as a repository-data control rather than a runner-placement control.
WarpBuild names US and EU regions for runner placement. Self-hosting the whole runner fleet inside your own account is the BYOC path above.
Observability, the Action Debugger, and snapshot runners
WarpBuild ships CI observability with OpenTelemetry system metrics from the runner agent correlated with GitHub Actions job logs, the Action Debugger for an SSH session into a paused job, snapshot runners that boot later jobs from a captured VM state, and an MCP server that exposes supported tools to an agent.
GitHub's first-party equivalent is the metrics surface described above, which is real and worth using. An interactive debugger session on a hosted runner and a snapshot mechanism were verified absent from GitHub's Actions metrics docs and the hosted runners reference on 2026-08-13.
Egress cost on the enterprise tier
On the enterprise tier, runners pull large images and artifacts from ECR, S3, and similar stores with zero egress cost to you. Zero egress applies whether your runners live in your cloud or ours. See region-specific infrastructure.
Keep this separate from GitHub's published transfer allowances, which concern GitHub's own network: 1 GB of outbound transfer a month on Free, 10 GB on Pro and Team, and 100 GB on Enterprise Cloud for Packages, with data transferred in free of charge, per the Packages billing docs. Those are different bills from the egress your cloud provider charges you during a deployment.
Pricing model
WarpBuild pricing is purely usage based. There is no base subscription fee, no platform fee, and no seat fee, and signup includes $10 free credits. GitHub layers per-minute Actions rates on top of a per-user seat subscription, with plan prices published on the GitHub pricing page.
SSO on WarpBuild costs a flat $250 per month, whatever the user count, published on the pricing page and set up from the SSO docs. GitHub gates SAML single sign-on behind GitHub Enterprise Cloud, and states that the Team plan is not eligible, on the SAML SSO docs. GitHub's SSO cost is transparent, and it is a per-seat plan upgrade for every user in the organization rather than a flat fee.
Slack support channels are available on demand on WarpBuild. GitHub publishes four support levels, Community, Standard, Enterprise, and purchasable Premium, on its support page.
WarpBuild holds SOC 2 Type 2, with the report and controls at trust.warpbuild.com.
When GitHub-Hosted Is the Better Choice
Public repositories on standard runners. Free is free. If your project is open source and your jobs fit the standard shapes, there is no cost argument for switching, and GitHub says so itself on the Actions billing page.
Private repositories that stay inside included minutes. 2,000 minutes on Free and 3,000 on Team cover a lot of small projects. If your monthly Actions bill is $0 today, a per-minute vendor cannot beat it.
Teams that never touch the caps. If you run 15 concurrent jobs on a 60-job cap and no macOS, the concurrency row does not matter to you.
Workloads that need what WarpBuild does not offer. Larger runner classes with a Tesla T4 and the windows-11-arm images are GitHub-only in this comparison, per the larger runners reference and actions/runner-images.
Small macOS jobs that fit 3 vCPU. GitHub's standard Apple Silicon macOS runner at $0.062 per minute is the cheapest macOS minute on either price list, and it draws on included minutes. WarpBuild's macOS advantage applies at the larger shapes.
Personal accounts. WarpBuild registers runners in the Default runner group of a GitHub organization, per the public repository setup docs, so an organization is a prerequisite.
Cost Comparison
All GitHub rates below come from GitHub's Actions minute multipliers page, checked on 2026-08-13, quoted with GitHub's own billing SKU strings so you can match them against your usage export. All WarpBuild rates come from the pricing page and the cloud runner catalog, also checked on 2026-08-13.
macOS
| Runner | vCPU | RAM | USD per minute | USD per hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
WarpBuild warp-macos-latest-arm64-6x | 6 | 22 GB | 0.080 | 4.80 |
GitHub macos-latest-xlarge (macos_xl, Apple Silicon) | 5 | 14 GB | 0.102 | 6.12 |
WarpBuild warp-macos-latest-arm64-12x | 12 | 44 GB | 0.160 | 9.60 |
GitHub macos-latest-large (macos_l, Intel) | 12 | 30 GB | 0.077 | 4.62 |
GitHub macos-latest (actions_macos, Apple Silicon) | 3 | 7 GB | 0.062 | 3.72 |
GitHub rates: docs.github.com actions-minute-multipliers, checked 2026-08-13. Hourly figures are the per-minute rate multiplied by 60.
The matched Apple Silicon pair is the first two rows. 0.102 minus 0.080 is 0.022 lower per minute, which is 22 percent lower list price, or 1.32 lower per hour. A 30-minute macOS build costs 3.06 on the GitHub shape and 2.40 on the WarpBuild shape, a difference of 0.66 per build; at 500 builds a month that is 330 lower per month.
Two rows in that table go the other way, and they matter. GitHub's 3 vCPU standard macOS runner is the cheapest macOS minute anywhere in this comparison, and standard runners draw on your included minutes. GitHub's 12 vCPU Intel larger runner is also cheaper per minute than the WarpBuild 12 vCPU Apple Silicon runner; the shapes differ by architecture and by 14 GB of memory, so pick by what your build needs rather than by the rate alone.
Linux x64
| Shape | WarpBuild label | WarpBuild USD per minute | GitHub SKU | GitHub USD per minute | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 vCPU, 8 GB | warp-ubuntu-latest-x64-2x | 0.004 | actions_linux (ubuntu-latest, private repos) | 0.006 | 0.002 lower, 33 percent lower |
| 4 vCPU, 16 GB | warp-ubuntu-latest-x64-4x | 0.008 | linux_4_core | 0.012 | 0.004 lower, 33 percent lower |
| 8 vCPU, 32 GB | warp-ubuntu-latest-x64-8x | 0.016 | linux_8_core | 0.022 | 0.006 lower, 27 percent lower |
| 16 vCPU, 64 GB | warp-ubuntu-latest-x64-16x | 0.032 | linux_16_core | 0.042 | 0.010 lower, 24 percent lower |
| 32 vCPU, 128 GB | warp-ubuntu-latest-x64-32x | 0.064 | linux_32_core | 0.082 | 0.018 lower, 22 percent lower |
GitHub rates: docs.github.com actions-minute-multipliers, checked 2026-08-13. GitHub sizes above 32 vCPU (64-core and 96-core) have no WarpBuild counterpart and are left out of the table rather than compared to a smaller shape.
Linux ARM64
| Shape | WarpBuild label | WarpBuild USD per minute | GitHub SKU | GitHub USD per minute | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 vCPU, 8 GB | warp-ubuntu-latest-arm64-2x | 0.003 | actions_linux_arm (ubuntu-24.04-arm, private repos) | 0.005 | 0.002 lower, 40 percent lower |
| 4 vCPU, 16 GB | warp-ubuntu-latest-arm64-4x | 0.006 | linux_4_core_arm | 0.008 | 0.002 lower, 25 percent lower |
| 8 vCPU, 32 GB | warp-ubuntu-latest-arm64-8x | 0.012 | linux_8_core_arm | 0.014 | 0.002 lower, 14 percent lower |
| 16 vCPU, 64 GB | warp-ubuntu-latest-arm64-16x | 0.024 | linux_16_core_arm | 0.026 | 0.002 lower, 8 percent lower |
| 32 vCPU, 128 GB | warp-ubuntu-latest-arm64-32x | 0.048 | linux_32_core_arm | 0.050 | 0.002 lower, 4 percent lower |
GitHub rates: docs.github.com actions-minute-multipliers, checked 2026-08-13. The gap on ARM64 narrows to 0.002 per minute at every size, so at 16 and 32 vCPU this row is close to parity.
Windows
| Shape | WarpBuild label | WarpBuild USD per minute | GitHub SKU | GitHub USD per minute | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 vCPU, 16 GB | warp-windows-latest-x64-4x | 0.016 | windows_4_core | 0.022 | 0.006 lower, 27 percent lower |
| 8 vCPU, 32 GB | warp-windows-latest-x64-8x | 0.032 | windows_8_core | 0.042 | 0.010 lower, 24 percent lower |
| 16 vCPU, 64 GB | warp-windows-latest-x64-16x | 0.064 | windows_16_core | 0.082 | 0.018 lower, 22 percent lower |
| 32 vCPU, 128 GB | warp-windows-latest-x64-32x | 0.128 | windows_32_core | 0.162 | 0.034 lower, 21 percent lower |
GitHub rates: docs.github.com actions-minute-multipliers, checked 2026-08-13. GitHub's standard windows-latest on a private repository is 2 vCPU and 8 GB at 0.010 per minute; WarpBuild removed its 2 vCPU Windows runners on 2026-06-08, so the smallest comparable pair starts at 4 vCPU.
A worked monthly model
Take a team running 20,000 Linux minutes a month on a 4 vCPU shape and 2,000 macOS minutes a month on the larger Apple Silicon shape, all in private repositories.
- Linux on GitHub: 20,000 minutes at 0.012 is 240 a month. Included minutes do not apply, because GitHub states larger runners are always charged.
- Linux on WarpBuild: 20,000 minutes at 0.008 is 160 a month. Difference: 80.
- macOS on GitHub: 2,000 minutes at 0.102 is 204 a month.
- macOS on WarpBuild: 2,000 minutes at 0.08 is 160 a month. Difference: 44.
- Total difference: 124 a month, before the $10 in signup credits.
Three billing rules change this arithmetic and all three come from GitHub's own pages, checked on 2026-08-13. GitHub "rounds the minutes and partial minutes each job uses up to the nearest whole minute", so a 12-second job bills a full minute, per the minute multipliers page. Included minutes reset monthly and cannot be applied to larger runners, per the Actions billing page. And usage is blocked once quota is exhausted if no payment method is on file, per the same page. WarpBuild also bills per minute, so a matrix of very short jobs rounds up on both platforms.
WarpBuild add-ons are metered separately and listed on the pricing page: cache storage, cache operations, snapshot restores, and snapshot storage. Network add-ons such as Tailscale are $0. On BYOC, runner minutes are $0.002 and the add-ons are included, because the compute bill goes to your own cloud account.
Feature Comparison
| Dimension | WarpBuild | GitHub-hosted runners |
|---|---|---|
| Platform coverage | Linux x64, Linux ARM64, macOS, and Windows runners, plus remote Docker builders. | Standard runners cover Linux x64 and arm64, Windows x64 and arm64, macOS Intel and Apple Silicon. Larger runners add classes carrying a Tesla T4 on Team and Enterprise Cloud. Source, checked 2026-08-13 |
| macOS depth | macOS 14, 15, and 26 images on M4 Pro hardware in 6 vCPU and 12 vCPU sizes. The macOS 26 image ships Xcode 27.0 and the macOS 27 SDKs with iOS 27.0, tvOS 27.0, watchOS 27.0, and visionOS 27.0 simulator runtimes while GitHub's upstream macOS 27 runner image is in beta. A dedicated macOS 27 image follows once that image is released. | Standard macOS runners are 3 vCPU and 7 GB on Apple Silicon and 4 vCPU and 14 GB on Intel. Larger macOS shapes add 12 vCPU Intel and 5 vCPU Apple Silicon. macOS 26 and macOS 15 images are GA, macOS 14 is deprecated, and the xcode-27 image is in preview. Source, checked 2026-08-13 |
| Bring your own cloud | BYOC runs on AWS, GCP, and Azure. Runner minutes are $0.002 and add-ons are included. | verified absent on 2026-08-13 |
| Data residency | US and EU regions. | GitHub hosts Linux and Windows runners on Azure virtual machines and macOS runners in Azure data centers. No customer-selectable region is documented for hosted runner compute. GitHub Enterprise Cloud with data residency is a separate product on GHE.com and does not state where Actions compute executes. Source, checked 2026-08-13 |
| Egress cost handling | On the enterprise tier, runners pull large images and artifacts from ECR, S3, and similar stores with zero egress cost to you. Zero egress applies whether your runners live in your cloud or ours. | Actions egress is not billed as a separate meter. The published transfer allowance covers Packages: 1 GB per month on Free, 10 GB on Pro and Team, 100 GB on Enterprise Cloud, with inbound transfer free and Actions downloads not counted against the hosting repository. This is egress on GitHub's own network, a different bill from the egress a customer's cloud provider charges during artifact pulls. Source, checked 2026-08-13 |
| Concurrency | Generally available Linux and Windows runners do not have plan-level concurrency caps. Beta features may have limits, and macOS uses a per-organization quota arranged with support. | Published hard caps per plan: 20 concurrent jobs on Free, 40 on Pro, 60 on Team, 500 on Enterprise, and 1,000 for larger runners on Team and Enterprise. Concurrent macOS jobs cap at 5 on Free, Pro, and Team and 50 on Enterprise, shared across standard and larger runners. Source, checked 2026-08-13 |
| Pricing model | Usage based, billed per minute. There is no base subscription fee, no platform fee, and no seat fee. Signup includes $10 free credits. | Per-minute usage rates layered on a per-user seat subscription, with included Actions minutes reset monthly: 2,000 on Free, 3,000 on Pro and Team, 50,000 on Enterprise Cloud. Standard runners are free on public repositories. Larger runners are always charged and cannot draw on included minutes. Jobs bill rounded up to the whole minute. Linux 2-core is $0.006 per minute, Windows 2-core $0.010, and macOS $0.062, checked 2026-08-13. Source, checked 2026-08-13 |
| SSO | SAML 2.0 and OIDC single sign-on for enterprise teams. | SAML single sign-on requires GitHub Enterprise Cloud, and their docs state the Team plan is not eligible. The gating cost is published as the Enterprise seat price, so it is a per-seat plan upgrade for every user in the organization rather than a flat SSO fee. Source, checked 2026-08-13 |
| Support | Slack support channels are available on demand. | Four levels: GitHub Community Support, Standard, Enterprise, and purchasable Premium. Free gets Community only, Pro and Team add Standard, Enterprise Cloud and Enterprise Server add Enterprise. Response times, coverage hours, and channel types are not stated on that page. Source, checked 2026-08-13 |
| Observability tooling | CI observability with OpenTelemetry metrics correlated to GitHub Actions job logs, plus the Action Debugger for an SSH session into a running job. | Actions usage metrics and Actions performance metrics covering job run time, queue time, and failure rate, at repository and organization level, broken down by workflow, repository, runtime OS, and runner type including self-hosted against GitHub-hosted. No published equivalent of an interactive job debugger or of snapshot runners was found on the metrics and hosted runner pages on 2026-08-13. Source, checked 2026-08-13 |
| API and Terraform | WarpBuild publishes an API for CI configuration and automation. A Terraform provider covers BYOC on AWS. | A REST API manages organization-level hosted runners, custom image definitions and versions, GitHub-owned and partner images, machine sizes, platforms, and limits. No first-party GitHub Terraform provider was found on 2026-08-13; the widely used integrations/github provider is not published by GitHub. Source, checked 2026-08-13 |
| Compliance | SOC 2 Type 2, with evidence at trust.warpbuild.com. | GitHub operates a Trust Center. The fetched page surfaced no enumerated certification list that could be quoted on 2026-08-13, so consult the Trust Center for the current reports. Source, checked 2026-08-13 |
| Shipping cadence | Runner image and platform changes are published monthly in the public docs changelog. | Public changelog with an Actions label. Eight Actions entries were published between 2026-06-25 and 2026-07-30, covering runner controls, image previews, and workflow features. Source, checked 2026-08-13 |
| Proof | Named customer case studies with before and after numbers, plus public repositories running warp- labels in their GitHub Actions workflows. | Runner images are open source with a public manifest per image listing installed tools, Xcode versions, and image build IDs. GitHub Actions is the default platform for the ecosystem and publishes no comparative proof page. Source, checked 2026-08-13 |
Every GitHub cell above links the GitHub page the fact came from, with the date it was checked. Cells marked verified absent were checked on the listed date against the pages named in the source column.
Migration Path
The switch is a label change. GitHub's ubuntu-latest on a private repository is 2 vCPU and 8 GB, which maps to warp-ubuntu-latest-x64-2x at the same shape, or to warp-ubuntu-latest-x64-4x if the job is CPU bound:
jobs:
build:
runs-on: warp-ubuntu-latest-x64-4xFull label mapping for ubuntu-latest, windows-latest, macos-latest, and the version-pinned labels, plus cache behavior, secrets, billing during a parallel run, and the rollback steps, is on migrate from GitHub-hosted runners to WarpBuild. Rollback is the same edit in reverse and takes effect on the next workflow run, because GitHub-hosted runners need no setup to return to.
If you arrived from a "make GitHub Actions faster" search rather than a vendor comparison, start with speed up GitHub Actions workflows for the workflow-level fixes, or Docker builds on GitHub Actions if container build time is what hurts. Braintrust reports consistent sub-minute runner provisioning on both ARM64 and x86 WarpBuild runners, per the Braintrust case study. Build-time comparisons wait for the public benchmarks page, so run the duplicated job yourself and read your own numbers.
FAQ
Do I have to rewrite my workflows to move off GitHub-hosted runners?
No. WarpBuild runners register as self-hosted runners against your GitHub organization, so the only required edit is the runs-on label. Actions from the marketplace, secrets, environments, OIDC, and GITHUB_TOKEN keep working the way GitHub documents them at https://docs.github.com/en/actions/reference/runners/github-hosted-runners.
Is WarpBuild cheaper than GitHub-hosted macOS runners?
At the closest matched Apple Silicon shape, yes. GitHub lists its larger Apple Silicon macOS runner (5 vCPU, 14 GB) at $0.102 per minute at https://docs.github.com/en/billing/reference/actions-minute-multipliers, checked on 2026-08-13. The WarpBuild 6 vCPU, 22 GB macOS runner is $0.08 per minute at https://www.warpbuild.com/pricing, which is 22 percent lower list price. GitHub's 3 vCPU standard macOS runner at $0.062 per minute is still the cheapest macOS minute on either price list.
What concurrency limits does each platform publish?
GitHub publishes hard per-plan caps at https://docs.github.com/en/actions/reference/limits, checked on 2026-08-13. The caps are 20 concurrent jobs on Free, 40 on Pro, 60 on Team, 500 on Enterprise, 1,000 for larger runners, and a macOS cap of 5 concurrent jobs on Free, Pro, and Team that is shared across standard and larger runners. Generally available WarpBuild Linux and Windows runners do not have plan-level concurrency caps; macOS capacity and beta runners have separate constraints.
Can I keep GitHub-hosted runners for some workflows and use WarpBuild for others?
Yes. The runs-on label is set per job, so you can move one job, one workflow, or one repository at a time and leave everything else on GitHub-hosted runners. Running both side by side for a week is the recommended validation path on https://www.warpbuild.com/migrate/github-hosted-to-warpbuild.
Does WarpBuild offer everything GitHub-hosted runners offer?
No. GitHub ships runner classes with a Tesla T4, and the windows-11-arm images, listed at https://docs.github.com/en/actions/reference/runners/larger-runners and https://github.com/actions/runner-images, checked on 2026-08-13. WarpBuild offers Linux x64, Linux ARM64, macOS, and Windows runners plus remote Docker builders, and does not offer those two classes.
How often is this comparison rechecked?
Every 60 days. GitHub changes runner images, prices, and limits often, so each number here carries the page it came from and the date it was checked. Report an error to [email protected] and the correction ships within 48 hours.
Start with $10 in free credits
Change the runner label in your workflow and keep the rest of your GitHub Actions setup. Runner time is billed per minute.