Cirrus Runners alternatives: pricing and migration
For Cirrus Runners CI workloads, compare Namespace, WarpBuild, Depot, Blacksmith and Tenki for metered runners, or MacRun for a dedicated Mac with a monthly fee. Preserve concurrency and job requirements when estimating the replacement bill. Macswarm hosts Claude Code and Codex sessions; it is not a drop-in CI runner.
Which services can replace Cirrus Runners?
The metered replacements for Cirrus Runners CI workloads are Namespace from $0.04 a minute (4 vCPU) and $0.06 (6 vCPU, prepaid) (namespace.so/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026), WarpBuild at $0.08 (6 vCPU/14 GB) (warpbuild.com/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026), Depot at $0.08 (8 vCPU/24 GB) plus a plan from $20 a month (depot.dev, checked 25 Oct 2026), Blacksmith at $0.08 with 3,000 free minutes a month per runner type (blacksmith.sh/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026) and Tenki from $0.040 to $0.160 (tenki.cloud, checked 25 Oct 2026). MacRun’s dedicated Mac mini CI runner is $139 a month (macrun.dev, checked 25 Oct 2026), closest to Cirrus Runners’ reference price of $150 per concurrent runner a month, unlimited minutes (cirrus-runners.app/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026). New customers cannot sign up; existing customers are supported through their current contract periods, so confirm your end date (cirruslabs.org, checked 25 Oct 2026). Preserve concurrency, job duration and image requirements when estimating the replacement bill. Macswarm hosts Claude Code and Codex sessions; it is not a drop-in CI runner.
| Option | What it is | Price (list) | Free to start | Hardware | Concurrency and job limits on the checked page | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Namespace | GitHub Actions runners with their own runner label; also sandboxes and devboxes | $0.04 a minute for 4 vCPU/7 GB, $0.06 for 6 vCPU/14 GB prepaid with $0.09 overage, $0.12 for 12 vCPU/28 GB, $0.20 for 16 vCPU/56 GB (namespace.so/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026) | 30-day trial of the Developer plan (namespace.so/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026) | M5 Max and M4 Pro bare metal | Developer: macOS concurrency 12 vCPU, 3-hour job maximum, $0 pay as you go; Team $100 a month, 5-hour jobs; Business $250 a month, 24-hour jobs (namespace.so/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026) | namespace.so/pricing (checked 25 Oct 2026) |
| WarpBuild | GitHub Actions runners | $0.08 a minute for 6 vCPU/14 GB, $0.16 for 12 vCPU/28 GB (warpbuild.com/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026) | Sign up without a card | M4 Pro | Not stated on the pricing page | warpbuild.com/pricing (checked 25 Oct 2026) |
| Depot | GitHub Actions runners plus container builds and Linux sandboxes | $0.08 a minute for 8 vCPU/24 GB (depot.dev runner types, checked 25 Oct 2026) plus a plan: Developer $20 a month, Startup $200 (depot.dev/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026) | Developer includes 2,000 GitHub Actions minutes a month; whether they apply to macOS runners is not stated on the checked pages | M4 and M2 | Depot says macOS capacity is not fully elastic (depot.dev, checked 25 Oct 2026) | depot.dev runner types and pricing (checked 25 Oct 2026) |
| Blacksmith | GitHub Actions runners | $0.08 a minute (blacksmith.sh/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026) | 3,000 free minutes a month per runner type (blacksmith.sh/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026) | M4 | Not stated on the pricing page | blacksmith.sh/pricing (checked 25 Oct 2026) |
| Tenki | GitHub Actions runners on single-use VMs | $0.040 (2 vCPU) to $0.160 (8 vCPU/32 GB) a minute (tenki.cloud/products/runners, checked 25 Oct 2026) | $100 starter credit, no card (tenki.cloud, checked 25 Oct 2026) | M4 Pro bare metal | Not stated on the product page | tenki.cloud/products/runners (checked 25 Oct 2026) |
| MacRun | A dedicated Mac mini sold as a CI runner, with Xcode and the Simulator preinstalled | $139 a month, flat; $104 for the first month at launch pricing (macrun.dev, checked 25 Oct 2026) | None stated | M6 Mac mini | One machine; concurrency is what one Mac carries | macrun.dev (checked 25 Oct 2026) |
| Cirrus Runners, for reference | Flat-rate GitHub Actions runners, closed to new customers | $150 per concurrent runner per month, unlimited minutes (cirrus-runners.app/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026) | No new customers (cirruslabs.org, checked 25 Oct 2026) | M4 Pro, 4 vCPU/16 GB per runner (cirrus-runners.app/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026) | One job per runner; buy more runners for parallel jobs | cirrus-runners.app/pricing (checked 25 Oct 2026) |
| Macswarm | Mac Pods for Claude Code and Codex sessions; not a runner | Free: 3 Pod-hours once, one Pod, no card. Pro: $99 a month, 300 Pod-hours, up to four Pods, $0.40 per extra Pod-hour. Team: $399 a month, 1,500 Pod-hours, up to ten Pods, $0.30 extra, audit log and usage by developer. Enterprise: from $3,000 a month, reserved Macs, SSO/SAML, invoice billing, EU or US by contract; Contact us: info@macswarm.com | 3 Pod-hours, once, no card | Dedicated Apple silicon Mac minis, EU (Netherlands) or US | 2 to 3 active agents and 2 concurrent builds per Pod; Pods at a time: 1 on Free, 4 on Pro, 10 on Team, by contract on Enterprise | Pricing, Enterprise, Limits and queues |
Regions are not stated on the runner vendors’ checked pages. Installed Xcode and Simulator runtimes must be checked in each vendor’s image documentation; the table records only what the checked pages state. The full twelve-vendor table, including GitHub’s own rates, Codemagic, Bitrise, Xcode Cloud and NoMac, is on macOS CI runners pricing compared; Macswarm vs Namespace macOS and Macswarm vs MacRun go deeper on two of the options.
What would 50 or 200 runner-hours cost?
Illustrative compute costs for 50 or 200 aggregate runner-hours (3,000 or 12,000 minutes) in a month, assuming the workload fits the listed shape and can obtain two simultaneous runners; no performance equivalence is measured. The reference is a team that had two Cirrus Runners at $300 a month flat. Plan commitments, maximum job durations, cache and storage charges and taxes are excluded; where a plan fee is required to run the shape it is added and said so. These are list-price calculations, not performance benchmarks. Different machine shapes, billing conditions and workflows can change the cost of completing the same task.
| Option | 50 h | 200 h | How it is calculated, with assumptions and exclusions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Namespace, 6 vCPU/14 GB | $180 | $720 | Compute subtotal at the $0.06 prepaid rate (namespace.so/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026); plan commitments and the overage rate excluded. Two 6 vCPU runners fit the Developer plan’s 12 vCPU macOS concurrency; jobs there are limited to 3 hours |
| WarpBuild, 6 vCPU/14 GB | $240 | $960 | Minutes at $0.08 (warpbuild.com/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026); concurrency limits not stated on the pricing page |
| Depot, 8 vCPU/24 GB, Developer plan | $260 | $980 | Minutes at $0.08 plus the $20 a month Developer plan (depot.dev runner types and pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026); the plan’s included GitHub Actions minutes are not deducted because their macOS eligibility is not stated |
| Blacksmith, M4 | $0 | $720 | 3,000 free minutes a month per runner type, then $0.08 (blacksmith.sh/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026): 12,000 minus 3,000 minutes at $0.08 |
| Tenki, 2 vCPU to 8 vCPU/32 GB | $120 to $480 | $480 to $1,920 | Minutes at $0.040 (2 vCPU) up to $0.160 (8 vCPU/32 GB) (tenki.cloud, checked 25 Oct 2026); the one-time $100 starter credit is not deducted |
| MacRun, two Macs | $278 | $278 | Two dedicated Macs at $139 each (macrun.dev, checked 25 Oct 2026), one job each at a time, any number of minutes; you register and administer them |
| Cirrus Runners, for reference | $300 | $300 | Two runners at $150 each with unlimited minutes (cirrus-runners.app/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026); no longer available to new customers |
In these two scenarios, the 50-hour month costs less than the old $300 on every per-minute vendor and nothing on Blacksmith, and the 200-hour month costs two to three times the old bill on the per-minute vendors; two MacRun Macs at $278 are the only listed option near it. That is the trade a flat unlimited-minute runner hid: it was cheap for teams that used many minutes at a steady concurrency. Cirrus Labs announced that Tart, Orchard and Vetu, Cirrus Labs’ virtualization tools, are being relicensed under a more permissive licence with licensing fees dropped (cirruslabs.org, checked 25 Oct 2026); verify each tool’s current licence and operating requirements before planning to run your own macOS VMs on a rented or owned Mac mini.
How do you migrate from Cirrus Runners?
Steps to perform, not results anyone has measured for you:
- Record what the current setup uses: runner labels, peak concurrency, typical and longest job durations, image and runtime requirements, caches, and code-signing setup.
- Check each of those against the candidate’s documented limits: shapes, concurrency per plan, maximum job duration, included minutes and their eligibility, and plan commitment.
- Run one representative workflow on the candidate and compare results, queue time and billed usage with the Cirrus run.
- Migrate the remaining workflows before the verified end of your Cirrus contract period.
For the runner vendors, the change in a workflow is the runner label: swap the runs-on value for the one in the vendor’s documentation and keep the rest of the job. Macswarm has no runner label to swap to; its setup is a connected environment, described in the Claude Code quickstart and the Codex quickstart, and it serves agent sessions rather than CI jobs.
What happened to Cirrus Runners?
On 7 April 2026 Cirrus Labs announced that it had agreed to join OpenAI as part of the Agent Infrastructure team. The same announcement says Cirrus Runners is no longer accepting new customers, that existing customers are supported through their current contract periods, and that Cirrus CI shut down on 1 June 2026 (cirruslabs.org, checked 25 Oct 2026). Cirrus Runners’ published reference price was $150 per concurrent runner per month, with unlimited minutes (cirrus-runners.app/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026); the pricing page carries no shutdown notice. New customers cannot sign up. The announcement says existing customers are supported through their current contract periods; confirm your own end date.
Is Macswarm a drop-in replacement for Cirrus Runners?
No. Macswarm is not a GitHub Actions runner. Macswarm has no GitHub Actions runner label, no runner registration and no workflow trigger. For CI, pick one of the vendors above.
What Macswarm is: a hosted Mac Pod for Claude Code and Codex sessions, with the Latest Xcode, pre-booted iOS Simulators and XcodeBuildMCP, hosting two to three active agents for one developer at a time. Agents build, launch the app in a Simulator, tap through it, commit and push. Your CI, on whichever runner you chose from the table, builds and tests the branch they push. Plans, all monthly: Free, 3 Pod-hours once, one Pod, no card. Pro, $99 a month for 300 Pod-hours, up to four Pods at a time, $0.40 per extra Pod-hour. Team, $399 a month for 1,500 Pod-hours, up to ten Pods at a time, $0.30 per extra Pod-hour, with an audit log and usage by developer. Enterprise, from $3,000 a month: reserved Macs, SSO/SAML, invoice billing, EU or US by contract; Contact us: info@macswarm.com. The pricing page and the Enterprise page have the details. When comparing agent runtime with runner minutes, two things are separate from the plan price: model usage, billed by Anthropic or OpenAI, and the ten-minute interval billed after each session block.
If the reason you had Cirrus Runners was CI, replace them with a runner. If you also want an agent to build and test iOS apps on a Mac you do not own, that is a session, and a Pod is the thing to look at. Claude self-hosted environments require a Claude Team or Enterprise organization and are in public beta. Claude Pro and Max users can start a Pod on Macswarm Free or Pro and sign in to Claude Code inside it. Codex uses the OpenAI Agents API webhook with API access. Model usage is billed separately. Setup is in the Claude Code quickstart and the Codex quickstart; the FAQ lists which Claude plans work, Limits and queues has agents per Pod and Pods per plan, and Security and the privacy policy cover isolation, regions and retention.
What should you read next?
- macOS CI runners pricing compared: GitHub, Namespace, WarpBuild, Depot, Blacksmith, Tenki, Codemagic, Bitrise, Xcode Cloud, MacRun and NoMac in one dated table.
- Macswarm vs GitHub-hosted macOS runners: per-minute CI jobs, or Pod-hours.
- Macswarm vs Namespace macOS: per-minute bare metal, or Pod-hours.
- Macswarm vs MacRun: one dedicated Mac mini by the month, or Pod-hours.
- Xcode Cloud vs Macswarm for Codex and Claude Code: Apple’s CI, or a Mac for agent sessions.
- NoMac vs Macswarm: prepaid Mac sessions, or Pod-hour plans.
- Running Claude Code on a cloud Mac: a first session, step by step.
Where do these numbers come from?
- Cirrus Labs joining OpenAI, Cirrus Runners closed to new customers, support through current contract periods, the Cirrus CI shutdown date and the announced relicensing of Tart, Orchard and Vetu: cirruslabs.org, announcement dated 7 April 2026, checked 25 October 2026.
- Cirrus Runners price and shape: cirrus-runners.app/pricing, checked 25 October 2026. The page carries no shutdown notice.
- Namespace: namespace.so/pricing; WarpBuild: warpbuild.com/pricing; Depot: depot.dev runner types and depot.dev/pricing; Blacksmith: blacksmith.sh/pricing; Tenki: tenki.cloud/products/runners; MacRun: macrun.dev. All checked 25 October 2026. Regions are not stated on these pages.
- Macswarm prices and limits: the pricing page, Enterprise and Limits and queues. The 50- and 200-hour totals are our arithmetic from the list prices above.