Blazing fast builds, out of the box
CarbonRunner runs on the latest and fasted CPUs. With smart caching, giving your GitHub Actions unmatched speed from the very first job.
Linux Build Benchmark: CarbonRunner 2vCPU vs GitHub 2vCPU
We benchmarked Linux builds to compare CarbonRunner against GitHub's 2vCPU runners.
CarbonRunner completed the build in 32 minutes for $0.19, while GitHub took 37 minutes at a cost of $0.30 — making CarbonRunner 14% faster and 36% cheaper.
Scaling up to CarbonRunner's super-fast 4vCPU runner, the build finished in just 32 minutes for $0.19. That's 62% quicker and 41% cheaper than GitHub's 2vCPU runner, proving that CarbonRunner delivers faster builds with lower costs.
linux
These are updated weekly on Monday mornings (UTC time)
Optimized Infrastructure for Faster Builds
CarbonRunner is built on the latest AMD EPYC CPUs with high core density, perfectly tuned for parallel workloads. Paired with super-fast NVMe SSDs, you get ultra-low latency disk access for build caching and Docker layers.
On top of that, our in-built caching for Go, Node, and Docker comes pre-configured out of the box — shaving valuable minutes off every job.
- We've got the latest latest AMD EPYC CPUs - high core density, optimized for parallel workloads.
- Parallel Workload Optimized
- Super fast NVMe SSDs - low-latency disk access for build caching and Docker layers.
- Low-Latency Disk Performance
- In-built caching - pre-configured for Go, Node, and Docker, saving minutes every job.
- Minutes Saved on Every Job
Time To Start
The time between Github creating a workflow job run and it being spun up on a runnner. We keep a pool of Github runners ready to go in low carbon regions, sometimes though, if you request an uncommon configuration such as (arm64,ubuntu-latest,kvm) we might not have one on hand and we'll start one up on the fly. This incurs a time cost of around 45s-90s.
We're happy with a P50 of 8s. We think this is fair based upon:
- 1. The time it takes Github to generate and send us a webhook 2s (see below)
- 2. A VM Instance picking up the job (<2s) and generating a Github JitConfig (~700ms)
- 3. The Github runner contacting Github and saying it's started the job ~2s
- 4. Regional latency. EU servers typically see a 80ms-170ms
- P50 (Median)
- 5s
- 50% of jobs start in less this time
- P90
- 9s
- 90% of jobs start in less this time
- P95
- 18s
- 95% of jobs start in less this time
Github Webhook Delay
We try to ingest webhooks as quickly as possible in a highly reliable way.
- P50 (Median)
- 1s
- 50% of jobs are received in less than this time
- P90
- 2s
- 90% of jobs are received in less than this time
- P95
- 2s
- 95% of jobs are received in less than this time
Cut Enterprise Cloud Costs by 25%
CarbonRunner is designed to be 25% cheaper than GitHub Actions on every compute minute — no matter the CPU size. By intelligently routing workloads across AWS, Azure, and GCP, we avoid overpriced regions and capacity bottlenecks.