Similar to GitHub, Blacksmith charges on compute usage for runners, with charges per minute rounded to the nearest minute.

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Blacksmith vs GitHub

Blacksmith runners are 75% less expensive than GitHub runners for the same vCPU count. The table below provides a comparison of the pricing for x64 and ARM runner for a minute of compute usage:

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x64 Runners

vCPU CountRunner LabelBlacksmithGitHubSavings per Minute
2blacksmith-2vcpu-ubuntu-2204$0.004$0.00850%
4blacksmith-4vcpu-ubuntu-2204$0.008$0.01650%
8blacksmith-8vcpu-ubuntu-2204$0.016$0.03250%
16blacksmith-16vcpu-ubuntu-2204$0.032$0.06450%
32blacksmith-32vcpu-ubuntu-2204$0.064$0.12850%

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ARM Runners

vCPU CountRunner LabelBlacksmithGitHubSavings per Minute
2blacksmith-2vcpu-ubuntu-2204-arm$0.0025$0.00550%
4blacksmith-4vcpu-ubuntu-2204-arm$0.005$0.0150%
8blacksmith-8vcpu-ubuntu-2204-arm$0.01$0.0250%
16blacksmith-16vcpu-ubuntu-2204-arm$0.02$0.0450%
32blacksmith-32vcpu-ubuntu-2204-arm$0.04$0.0850%

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Cost Comparison

Consider the following example to understand the cost of running a job on Blacksmith runners compared to GitHub runners:
  • A GitHub hosted runner with 2vCPUs completes the job in 25 minutes.
  • A Blacksmith runner with 2vCPUs finishes the same job in 17 minutes.
  • Running the job on a 4vCPU Blacksmith runner further reduces the time to 10 minutes.
Below is a cost comparison across the different configurations:
Runner LabelExecution TimeCost per MinuteTotal CostSavings vs. GitHub
ubuntu-latest25 mins$0.008$0.20-
blacksmith-2vcpu-ubuntu-220417 mins$0.004$0.06866%
blacksmith-4vcpu-ubuntu-220410 mins$0.008$0.0860%
  • The blacksmith-2vcpu-ubuntu-2204 runner is 66% cheaper than GitHub’s 2vCPU runner while being 32% faster.
  • The blacksmith-4vcpu-ubuntu-2204 runner is 60% cheaper despite being more than 2x faster than GitHub’s 2vCPU runner.
Blacksmith runners are 50% less expensive than GitHub runners per minute for the same vCPU count, but when you factor in fewer vCPU minutes being consumed due to faster runners, the savings are often close to 75% for the same job.

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Free Minutes

Blacksmith provides 3000 x64 2vCPU minutes for free per month per organization. These minutes can be used on runners with higher vCPU counts, but the minutes will be consumed at a higher rate proportional to the vCPU count. For instance, a job taking 10 minutes on a 4vCPU runner would consume the equivalent of 20 2vCPU minutes and a job taking 10 minutes on an 8vCPU runner would consume the equivalent of 40 2vCPU minutes. Note that ARM runners may also utilize the free minutes. For billing purposes, 1 ARM vCPU minute = 0.625 x64 2vCPU minutes. The same conversion rate applies proportionally to runners with higher vCPU counts. For example, a job running for 10 minutes on an ARM 4vCPU runner would consume 12.5 x64 2vCPU minutes.

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No Concurrency Limits

Blacksmith does not impose any concurrency limits i.e., limits on how many vCPUs or jobs that can be run simultaneously. Our mission is to offer a truly serverless experience for your CI.

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No Queuing for Larger Runners

A common complaint from customers migrating from GitHub-hosted runners or self-hosted setups are the long wait times for a job to be picked up by larger runners (8vCPU+), especially during peak hours. All Blacksmith runner configurations (2, 4, 8, 16, and 32 vCPU) are instantly available on demand. We maintain our own homogenous pool of compute, so your CI jobs don’t compete with other on-demand workloads like they would on hyperscalers like AWS, GCP or Azure. This helps our customers aggressively shard their test suites and deploy pipelines without worrying about queued jobs due to a lack of available runners.