# SuperCI vs RunsOn: runners in your own cloud

Both start a fresh machine in your own AWS account for each job. SuperCI is open source and also runs GitLab CI, Cloudflare and Modal; RunsOn has been at it longer and does more on AWS.

Sources read on October 9, 2026.

SuperCI and [RunsOn](https://runs-on.com) do the same job on AWS: when a GitHub Actions job is queued, they start a machine for it in your own account, on spot capacity where they can, and end it when the job is done. You pay AWS's price for the machine.

## Side by side

| What | SuperCI | RunsOn |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Jobs run in | Your AWS, Cloudflare or Modal account | Your AWS account |
| Works with | GitHub Actions and GitLab CI | GitHub Actions |
| Licence | MIT, open source | Commercial; the CloudFormation templates are MIT |
| You pay | Your cloud's price | AWS's price, and from €300 a year for commercial use |
| Set up | A dashboard on your computer, or commands | A CloudFormation stack, in about ten minutes |
| Between jobs | A small function waits; nothing else runs | A control plane on ECS Fargate stays up |
| Longest job | Six hours, or what you set, up to 5 days on AWS | Twelve hours, or what you set |
| Windows, arm64, GPUs | Yes, on AWS | Yes |
| macOS | No | No |

RunsOn is free for nonprofit, open-source, educational and personal non-commercial use.

## Where SuperCI differs

**It is open source.** All of SuperCI is under the MIT licence: the dashboard, the control plane and what runs on the machines. RunsOn's server and agent are commercially licensed, and their source comes with its Enterprise licence.

**It is not only AWS.** SuperCI also runs jobs in Cloudflare containers and Modal sandboxes, and you put the providers in order: a job goes to the first that can run its machine and has room. A job with no spot machine can go to Cloudflare before it goes to an on-demand machine.

**It runs GitLab CI.** The same providers, order and limits serve GitLab jobs, from GitLab.com or a GitLab you host.

**Limits you set.** Each provider has a monthly budget and a number of jobs at once. At either, jobs go to the next provider.

## Where RunsOn is ahead

**It has run far more jobs.** RunsOn says it runs more than three million jobs a day for 900 companies. SuperCI is new.

**It does more on AWS.** RunsOn has an S3 cache it measures as about twice as fast to restore, and pools of warm machines that start a job in under six seconds. SuperCI starts each machine when its job arrives and has neither.

**A longer job by default.** A RunsOn machine runs for twelve hours unless you set otherwise; SuperCI's for six.

One more thing to know: on AWS, SuperCI's machines start from the machine images RunsOn publishes, which carry the tools of GitHub's own runners.

## Which to pick

Pick RunsOn if all your jobs are GitHub Actions on AWS, you want the most proven tool there, and a licence fee is no obstacle. Pick SuperCI if you want open source with nothing to buy, GitLab CI, or somewhere to run jobs besides AWS.

## Sources

Read on 9 October 2026.

- [RunsOn](https://runs-on.com/): where jobs run, what it works with, its figures for jobs a day, the cache and warm pools, no macOS.
- [RunsOn pricing](https://runs-on.com/pricing/): the licences and who may use it free.
- [runs-on/runs-on on GitHub](https://github.com/runs-on/runs-on): what is under the MIT licence and what is commercially licensed.
- [RunsOn's install guide](https://runs-on.com/guides/install/): the CloudFormation stack and how long it takes.
- [RunsOn's stack parameters](https://runs-on.com/configuration/stack-config): the control plane on ECS Fargate, and a runner's longest run.