GitHub Is Going To Start Charging You For Using Your Own Hardware (theregister.com)
- Reference: 0180412663
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/12/17/2042247/github-is-going-to-start-charging-you-for-using-your-own-hardware
- Source link: https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/17/github_charge_dev_own_hardware/
> Regardless of the public repo distinction, enterprise-scale developers who rely on self-hosted runners were predictably not pleased about the announcement. "Github have just sent out an email announcing a $0.002/minute fee for self-hosted runners," Reddit user markmcw posted on the DevOps subreddit. "Just ran the numbers, and for us, that's close to $3.5k a month extra on our GitHub bill." [...]
>
> "Historically, self-hosted runner customers were able to leverage much of GitHub Actions' infrastructure and services at no cost," the repo host said in its blog FAQ. "This meant that the cost of maintaining and evolving these essential services was largely being subsidized by the prices set for GitHub-hosted runners." The move, GitHub said, will align costs more closely with usage. Like many similar changes to pricing models pushed by tech firms, GitHub says "the vast majority of users ... will see no price increase."
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> GitHub claims that 96 percent of its customers will see no change to their bill, and that 85 percent of the 4 percent affected by the pricing update will actually see their Actions costs decrease. The company says the remaining 15 percent of impacted users will face a median increase of about $13 a month. For those using self-hosted runners and worried about increased costs, GitHub has updated its [3]pricing calculator to include the cost of self-hosted runners.
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/17/github_charge_dev_own_hardware/
[2] https://github.blog/changelog/2025-12-16-coming-soon-simpler-pricing-and-a-better-experience-for-github-actions/
[3] https://github.com/pricing/calculator#actions
Well, that was quick (Score:4, Funny)
FTA: (Wed 17 Dec 2025 // 17:26 UTC )
"UPDATED Following publication of our original article, GitHub reversed its decision. The Microsoft-owned developer site has taken to X to admit it might have made a mistake by unilaterally announcing plans to charge people for using their own hardware to host runners."
Re: (Score:2)
Utterly hilarious that X is so powerful that it can make Microsofties making long term price plans (which must have passed multiple committees)... just surrender and cancel their plans within a day.
Granted they're "re-evaluating our approach" so they'll try again later. But it's still funny.
Uhm... (Score:3)
What exactly is a self-hosted runner? Or a runner for that matter in this context?
Re: Uhm... (Score:2)
Seems to be a VM that's spun up for a specific task automatically then closed. I would presume the self hosted just means you're not using GitHub hardware to do anymore than tell something else to "run"
Essentially it is.. (Score:3)
Essentially it is a means for GitHub to spin up processes or scripts on machines(VM/physical) to do "stuff" when certain things happen in a GitHub repo.
Most common uses would be stuff like building and deploying software after a push to main.
You push(update) main(branch of your application code) and it triggers a runner, a GitHub agent software running on a VM or physical machine. The runner(agent) executes commands like compiling the code, testing, deploying to your preferred location. It does these execut
README (Score:3)
Read the article. It has already been edited to announce that GitHub has reversed their decision, for now.
There will NOT be any charge for runners on your own hardware.
No charges for self-hosted Action runners. Until...
Preemtive manipulation (Score:3)
"GitHub claims that 96 percent of its customers will see no change to their bill"
I always love this ploy. "You are part of a small percentage of users whining about this, but our price changes are actually good for everyone else", as if you're supposed to take one for the good of humanity. Or Microsoft.
The enshitification of GitHub continues apace (Score:1)
Microsoft ruins everything they touch.
Re: The enshitification of GitHub continues apace (Score:2)
Sadly bitbucket seems intent on killing off their free private offering as well. Not sure where to turn to next.
Re: (Score:3)
Gitlab and Forgejo are both open-source and self-hostable.
Re: The enshitification of GitHub continues apace (Score:2)
Gitlab should have been an obvious one sorry. Thank you :). Will have to learn how to self host.
Re: (Score:2)
For self-hosting, try Fogejo instead. It should be a lot easier to host and administer, and has a nice "smoothness" to it. (I used to use it back when it was still Gitea...)