The best ci runners, according to hackers
9 ci runners recommended in Hacker News comments over the past year, ranked by how many separate people recommend each one.
- Most recommendedBlacksmith runners22 people recommend it
- Least regretWarpBuild12 recommend, 2 criticize
- Free and lovedGitHub Actions self-hosted runners9 people recommend it
All ci runners
- Blacksmith runnersDevelopers recommend it for faster CI builds and tests and lower cost than GitHub-hosted runners. Critics say a free trial led to unexpected charges and weak support.22recommend
- WarpBuildRecommended as cheaper and faster GitHub Actions runners, including macOS, with an easy setup. Critics note it depends on GitHub's platform and pricing decisions.12recommend
- GitHub Actions self-hosted runnersRecommended for running CI jobs on your own machines, often much faster than GitHub's cloud runners and easy to set up. Critics point to hangs, CPU-hungry sleep loops, and weak support outside Linux.9recommend
- RunsOnPeople recommend it for cheaper, fixed-cost self-hosted GitHub Actions runners on your own AWS account. Critics note it is AWS-only and cannot build iOS apps on EC2 Macs.8recommend
- NamespaceDevelopers use it as a faster GitHub Actions runner that fixed their CI problems. The most common caveat is that its custom setup makes switching back to another provider hard.8recommend
- Forgejo RunnerPeople recommend it as a small, solid CI runner that is easy to build and run, and that works well with Forgejo and Gitea.8recommend
- RISE RISC-V RunnersFree native RISC-V continuous integration on GitHub Actions, backed by the Linux Foundation. Critics say the hardware is old and it is slower than emulation.7recommend
- AvreaPeople recommend Avrea as a fast, reliable, drop-in alternative to GitHub Actions for running CI jobs, with predictable billing compared to GitHub's bills.5recommend
- GitLab RunnerFree self-hosted runner for GitLab CI jobs, praised as easy to manage. Common caveat: logs are unhelpful about connectivity problems.5recommend