Show HN: Open-source x64 and Arm GitHub runners

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Open-source GitHub Actions runners from Ubicloud promise up to 10x lower CI costs and faster builds by running on bare-metal providers like Hetzner, drawing strong interest from teams frustrated with GitHub’s pricing and performance, especially for Linux workloads. Commenters probe how Ubicloud handles caching, storage isolation, licensing (including a move to AGPL), and compliance, while also noting gaps such as macOS support, SOC 2, and potential conflicts with GitHub’s terms of service. The conversation situates Ubicloud within a crowded field of third-party runners and self-hosted setups, reflecting a broader trend toward cheaper, more controllable CI infrastructure.

Product & Positioning

  • Open-source GitHub Actions runners on x64/ARM, built on bare metal providers (notably Hetzner), marketed as ~10x cheaper and faster than GitHub’s hosted runners.
  • Framed as part of a broader “open, portable cloud” you can self-host or use as a managed service.
  • Some feedback that messaging is a bit vague/marketing-heavy; suggestions to explain concretely what it is, why it is cheaper, and tighten wording on the landing page.

Performance, Caching & Storage

  • Multiple users report large speedups and big cost savings vs GitHub-hosted runners, sometimes halving build times or better.
  • I/O on GitHub’s own runners is widely regarded as poor; moving to Hetzner or self-hosted hardware often yields 5–10x I/O improvements.
  • Caching is currently a pain point: GitHub-hosted cache is slow over the network; some users get faster builds by disabling cache and recomputing.
  • Ubicloud is designing its own caching (Docker layers, package caches). Suggestions include local persistent disks per builder, similar to other CI platforms.
  • Storage architecture discussion: need for copy-on-write/clone-on-attach to avoid copying an ~86GB base image every run; concerns about CoW/CoA performance and filesystem choices (ext4 vs btrfs, ZFS alternatives).

Security, Data Wiping & Compliance

  • Runners are ephemeral; VMs are shut down and block devices removed between jobs. Planned future “cryptoshredding” for GH runners similar to normal VMs.
  • Questions about whether block reuse could leak data; one mitigation discussed is encryption-at-rest with KEK/DEK (not yet fully applied here).
  • Some worry about lack of SOC2 and similar attestations, especially given CI pipelines’ access to secrets and deployment keys.
  • Questions about GDPR compliance and company jurisdiction; not clearly answered in the thread.

macOS Runners & Licensing Issues

  • macOS CI costs are a major pain point. Apple’s licensing (physical Macs, 24h minimum lease) makes hosted macOS tricky.
  • Ubicloud does not plan macOS support due to licensing and hardware constraints; other providers are mentioned for macOS ARM.
  • Parallel discussion about GitHub’s new M1 runners and third-party macOS offerings.

Legal / GitHub ToS & Ecosystem

  • Concern that selling “hosted GitHub runners” may conflict with GitHub’s Actions ToS. Interpretations differ:
    • One side: ToS forbids turning Actions into a commercial CI platform but doesn’t ban third-party runners.
    • Others: offerings that monetize runners for Actions may still be in a grey area.
  • Many alternatives and adjacent tools referenced (BuildJet, WarpBuild, RunsOn, Cirun, AWS/Hetzner Terraform modules, self-hosted setups).

Licensing & Openness

  • Project recently switched from Elastic license to AGPLv3; thread notes and welcomes this change.
  • Some documentation still referenced Elastic and needed updating; maintainers indicate that is being corrected.

Miscellaneous Concerns

  • Interest in support for Windows and FreeBSD in future.
  • Requests for private egress ranges / running inside a customer VPC for secure internal access.
  • Brief mention of environmental impact of disabling caches vs network-heavy caching; acknowledged as complex and hard to quantify.