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GitHub Actions CPU performance

GitHub Actions CPU performance

This guide compares CPU performance and queue times across GitHub Actions runners - including official GitHub runners, self-hosted solutions, and third-party providers. Real-world benchmarks show how each option performs to help select the optimal runner.

Providers included in the benchmark

Official:

Self-hosted alternatives:

Third-party alternatives:

Note: I’d love to benchmark Depot (hosted on AWS), but they forbid benchmarking their platform 🤷.

GitHub Actions CPU speed and queuing times

Last updated:

Benchmarks are performed using the Passmark benchmarking tool ↗, using the CPU Single Threaded metric. The table displays the last 30 days of data, before the last updated date.

Key metrics such as the processor model, single-thread CPU speed, queue time, pricing, and the underlying infrastructure provider are compared. The CPU single-threaded rating is a crucial metric as it is the most significant factor (unless your job is massively parallel) in accelerating any of your workflows.

x64 runners

CPU Performance (p50) vs. Queue Time (p50QueueTime) - x64

< 40s< 35s< 30s< 25s< 20s< 15s< 10s< 5s0sp50QueueTime (seconds) 160018002000220024002600280030003200340036003800400042004400p50 (Passmark) NamespaceUbicloudWarpbuildBlacksmithBuildjetCirrusRunsOnRunsOnRunsOnRunsOnGitHubGitHubAWS CodeBuild Providers RunsOnGitHubOther Providers

Queue times (X-axis) closer to < 10s and higher CPU scores (Y-axis) are better (not considering price, reliability, privacy, etc.).

Detailed results

Provider CPU speed
(p50 | p90) 		Queue time (s)
(p50 | p90 | max) 		Processor Infra / ISP Samples
Namespace (2x cheaper, SaaS)
  • nscloud-ubuntu-22.04-amd64-2x8
 3910 | 4054 14 | 17 AMD EPYC (x86_64) Namespacelabs (might vary) 28
Ubicloud (10x cheaper, SaaS)
  • ubicloud-standard-2
 3832 | 3969 28 | 44 AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D 16-Core Processor (x86_64) Hetzner Online 24
Blacksmith (2x cheaper, SaaS)
  • blacksmith-2vcpu-ubuntu-2204
 3832 | 3985 19 | 22 AMD EPYC (x86_64) Hetzner Online 28
Warpbuild (2x cheaper, SaaS)
  • warp-ubuntu-2204-x64-2x
 3770 | 3871 33 | 42 AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D 16-Core Processor (x86_64) Hetzner Online 15
Buildjet (2x cheaper, SaaS)
  • buildjet-2vcpu-ubuntu-2204
 3305 | 3465 21 | 24 AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 16-Core Processor (x86_64) Hetzner Online 22
RunsOn (10x cheaper - self-hosted)
  • runs-on,family=i7ie
 3072 | 3143 30 | 36 Intel Xeon Platinum 8559C (x86_64) Amazon.com 31
RunsOn (10x cheaper - self-hosted)
  • runs-on,family=r7iz
 3072 | 3077 26 | 57 Intel Xeon Gold 6455B (x86_64) Amazon.com 31
Cirrus ($150/runner, SaaS)
  • ghcr.io/cirruslabs/ubuntu-runner-amd64:22.04-md
 2998 | 3171 21 | 38 Intel Xeon Gold 5412U (x86_64) Hetzner Online GmbH 27
RunsOn (10x cheaper - self-hosted)
  • runs-on,family=c7a
  • runs-on,family=m7a
 2876 | 2880 25 | 56 AMD EPYC 9R14 (x86_64) Amazon.com 62
RunsOn (10x cheaper - self-hosted)
  • runs-on,family=m7i
 2852 | 2945 26 | 31 Intel Xeon Platinum 8488C (x86_64) Amazon.com 31
GitHub
  • github-16cpu-x64
 2370 | 2376 8 | 9 AMD EPYC 7763 64-Core Processor (x86_64) (custom) Microsoft Azure 27
GitHub
  • ubuntu-22.04
 2301 | 2305 9 | 12 AMD EPYC 7763 64-Core Processor (x86_64) Microsoft Azure 28
AWS CodeBuild
  • codebuild-ubuntu-7.0-large
  • codebuild-ubuntu-7.0-medium
  • codebuild-ubuntu-7.0-small
 2102 | 2144 28 | 31 Intel Xeon Platinum 8275CL CPU @ 3.00GHz (x86_64) Amazon.com 65
Depot (2x cheaper, SaaS)
  • N/A
 N/A N/A N/A Amazon.com 0

arm64 runners

CPU Performance (p50) vs. Queue Time (p50QueueTime) - arm64

< 55s< 50s< 45s< 40s< 35s< 30s< 25s< 20s< 15s< 10s< 5s0sp50QueueTime (seconds) 80010001200140016001800200022002400p50 (Passmark) WarpbuildRunsOnRunsOnCirrusBuildjetGitHubBlacksmithNamespaceUbicloud Providers RunsOnGitHubOther Providers

Queue times (X-axis) closer to < 10s and higher CPU scores (Y-axis) are better (not considering price, reliability, privacy, etc.).

Detailed results

Provider CPU speed
(p50 | p90) 		Queue time (s)
(p50 | p90 | max) 		Processor Infra / ISP Samples
Warpbuild (2x cheaper, SaaS)
  • warp-ubuntu-2204-arm64-2x
 1936 | 1938 19 | 31 Neoverse-V2 (aarch64) Amazon.com 17
RunsOn (10x cheaper - self-hosted)
  • runs-on,family=m8g
  • runs-on,family=r8g
 1932 | 1934 25 | 40 Neoverse-V2 (aarch64) Amazon.com 60
RunsOn (10x cheaper - self-hosted)
  • runs-on,family=m7g
 1542 | 1547 26 | 44 (aarch64) Amazon.com 30
Cirrus ($150/runner, SaaS)
  • ghcr.io/cirruslabs/ubuntu-runner-arm64:22.04-md
 1325 | 1326 50 | 102 Neoverse-N1 (aarch64) Hetzner Online GmbH 29
Buildjet (2x cheaper, SaaS)
  • buildjet-2vcpu-ubuntu-2204-arm
 1323 | 1325 34 | 37 Neoverse-N1 (aarch64) Hetzner Online 29
GitHub
  • github-2cpu-arm64
 1316 | 1319 6 | 9 Neoverse-N1 (aarch64) Microsoft Azure 11
Blacksmith (2x cheaper, SaaS)
  • blacksmith-2vcpu-ubuntu-2204-arm
 1313 | 1320 21 | 24 Neoverse-N1 (aarch64) Hetzner Online 29
Ubicloud (10x cheaper, SaaS)
  • ubicloud-standard-2-arm
 1308 | 1314 36 | 44 Neoverse-N1 (aarch64) Hetzner Online 29
Namespace (2x cheaper, SaaS)
  • nscloud-ubuntu-22.04-arm64-2x8
 1261 | 1271 16 | 17 (aarch64) Deft Hosting (might vary) 29
Depot (2x cheaper, SaaS)
  • N/A
 N/A N/A N/A Amazon.com 0

FAQ

Who has the fastest x64 runners?

Namespace, Blacksmith, Ubicloud, Warpbuild, followed by Buildjet (though Buildjet’s and Ubicloud’s CPU models can vary).

Who has the fastest arm64 runners?

RunsOn and Warpbuild, since it uses latest AWS Graviton4 processors. Hetzner-based providers use older ARM CPUs.

Who's the cheapest?

RunsOn and Ubicloud offer the best pricing, around 10x cheaper than GitHub.

Observations

Performance

  • Namespace, Blacksmith, Warpbuild, and some of Ubicloud’s runners fleet lead x64 performance with latest AMD CPUs. AWS-based providers are not as fast due to AWS being slow to adopt newer CPUs for x64 architecture. Hopefully some good news on that front in 2025?
  • RunsOn and Warpbuild lead arm64 performance with Graviton4. Latest GitHub Actions Cobalt CPUs (only for some runs, and mostly for private repositories) not far behind.
  • GitHub uses older CPUs, especially for x64. Their arm64 is better but limited availability.
  • AWS CodeBuild instances are slower than GitHub and more expensive.

Reliability & Scaling

  • GitHub queue times are very good for standard runners. Used to be minutes for larger ones, but GitHub has improved their queue system.
  • AWS provides better scalability than Hetzner-based providers.
  • Hetzner providers (Buildjet, Ubicloud etc) require manual requests for higher concurrency, sometimes with extra fees.
  • Buildjet’s and Ubicloud’s variable CPU models impact reproducibility.

Cost

  • GitHub is the most expensive option (except for public repositories).
  • RunsOn and Ubicloud are ~10x cheaper than GitHub.
  • AWS CodeBuild pricing isn’t competitive.

Privacy & Security

  • GitHub Actions runners are managed by GitHub, and run on Azure. If your CI runners require access to private resources hosted elsewhere, you might need to expose some credentials as GitHub Actions secrets (ideally setup OIDC connections).
  • RunsOn is fully self-hosted on your AWS infrastructure (with a dedicated GitHub App generated at runtime). You can also assign custom IAM policies to your runners so that you don’t need to pass any credentials around if you need access to other private AWS resources. Networking stack can also be fully customized according to your security preferences.
  • AWS CodeBuild is a managed service from AWS. You need to register with a shared GitHub App. Other than that, everything stays on your AWS account.
  • Namespace, Blacksmith, Cirrus, Warpbuild, Ubicloud, Depot are SaaS providers. You need to register with a shared GitHub App, and they manage the control plane entirely. Some allow you to self-host the runners in your own Cloud provider account, but the runner registration process (including the token generation, which gives access to the repository contents) are never under your control.

Missing from benchmark:

  • Detailed concurrency/scaling tests. Important for high-volume CI/CD (thousands of jobs/day)

Note: this analysis is valid as of January 2025. Things change quickly in this space, so make sure you do your own research as well.