SuperCI vs GitHub-hosted runners
GitHub's runners are free for public repositories and need nothing set up. SuperCI is for when the private bill has grown, or a job needs a machine or a network GitHub does not offer.
GitHub’s own runners are the default for a reason: there is nothing to set up, and for public repositories they are free. SuperCI is for when the bill for private repositories has grown, or a job needs a machine or a network GitHub does not offer. A workflow can use both; the choice is made job by job, in runs-on.
Side by side
| What | SuperCI | GitHub-hosted runners |
|---|---|---|
| Jobs run in | Your AWS, Cloudflare or Modal account | GitHub’s cloud; Linux and Windows in Azure |
| 4 CPUs on Linux, a minute | About $0.0014, on an AWS spot machine | $0.012 |
| Set up | A dashboard on your computer, or commands | Nothing |
| Public repositories | Refused unless you allow one | Free on standard runners |
| Minutes in your plan | None; you pay your cloud | 2,000 to 50,000 a month, on standard runners only |
| Largest machine | Any size EC2 has | 96 cores, on the Team and Enterprise Cloud plans |
| Jobs at once | A limit you set, within your cloud’s quota | 20 to 500 by plan |
| Longest job | Six hours, or what you set, up to 5 days on AWS | 6 hours |
| GPUs | T4, L4, A10G, L40S on AWS; more on Modal | One size, 4 cores, at $0.052 a minute on Linux |
| A network of your own | Your subnets and security groups on AWS | Azure private networking, on larger runners |
| macOS | No | Yes |
| GitLab CI | Yes | No |
The price in the SuperCI column is AWS’s spot price for a c8a.xlarge in us-east-1 on 8 October 2026, with its disk and public address.
Where GitHub’s runners are the better choice
Public repositories. GitHub’s docs say it plainly: “Use of the standard GitHub-hosted runners is free and unlimited on public repositories.” Nothing you run yourself beats free, and running strangers’ pull requests in your own cloud account is a risk GitHub’s runners do not have.
Small private use. Every plan includes minutes: 2,000 a month on Free, 3,000 on Pro and Team, 50,000 on Enterprise Cloud. If your jobs fit in those on the standard 2-core runner, there is no bill to cut.
macOS. GitHub has Mac runners. SuperCI has none.
Nothing to look after. No cloud account, no quotas to raise, no control plane to update.
Where SuperCI is the better choice
The bill has grown. Past the included minutes, a 2-core minute is $0.006, and anything larger is never included: “Larger runners are always charged for, even when used by public repositories or when you have quota available from your plan.” On a spot machine in your own account, four CPUs cost about an eighth of GitHub’s price for four.
Larger machines, without a plan upgrade. GitHub’s larger runners need the Team or Enterprise Cloud plan. On SuperCI the label asks for the size: runs-on: superci-32cpu.
Jobs that must reach your network. A machine SuperCI starts on AWS can sit in your own subnets, beside the database or the cluster the job needs.
GitLab as well. The same machines, order and limits serve GitLab CI.
Using both
Nothing has to move at once. Leave the macOS job and the quick lint on GitHub, and send the long test suite to your own cloud:
jobs:
lint:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
test:
runs-on: superci-8cpuSources
Read on 9 October 2026.
- Actions runner pricing: the price of each runner, and which plans may use larger runners.
- GitHub Actions billing: the minutes in each plan, and that larger runners are always charged for.
- GitHub-hosted runners: where they run, and that standard runners are free for public repositories.
- Actions limits: the longest job and the number of jobs at once.
- Larger runners: what they add, private networking among it.