# 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.

Sources read on October 9, 2026.

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:

```yaml
jobs:
  lint:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
  test:
    runs-on: superci-8cpu
```

## Sources

Read on 9 October 2026.

- [Actions runner pricing](https://docs.github.com/en/billing/reference/actions-runner-pricing): the price of each runner, and which plans may use larger runners.
- [GitHub Actions billing](https://docs.github.com/en/billing/concepts/product-billing/github-actions): the minutes in each plan, and that larger runners are always charged for.
- [GitHub-hosted runners](https://docs.github.com/en/actions/reference/runners/github-hosted-runners): where they run, and that standard runners are free for public repositories.
- [Actions limits](https://docs.github.com/en/actions/reference/limits): the longest job and the number of jobs at once.
- [Larger runners](https://docs.github.com/en/actions/concepts/runners/larger-runners): what they add, private networking among it.