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Pricing Changes for GitHub Actions

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Re: Pricing Changes for GitHub Actions

#131

Post by golovast »

I got contacted by our rep a couple weeks ago, who informed me of this news. I thought it was a disaster and it really pissed me off. The rep couldn't even explain the reasoning well. It basically summed up to "because we can" and "where are you going to go?". He was shocked to find out that I didn't like it.

We currently self-host on kubernets/aws. The thing that really got to me isn't the new charge per se. It's the fact that GHA has a ton of problems. I can hold my nose and deal with them when it's free. But now that you're squeezing me, at least you could have created something like GHA 2.0 and added a charge for that. Instead, there are vague roadmap promises which don't even include things that I care about. Specifically:

- Jenkins had better kubernetes integration years ago. It's crazy that GHA can't beat that.

- "Reintroducing multi-label functionality" - yeah, so they first broke it. They did supply "reasons", which looked like they never talked to a customer. [1]

- Still no SDK of any kind.

- "Actions Data Stream" - or you can just fix your logging.

There are dozens more complains, which are easy enough to find. This kind of an approach just makes me want to make sure that I don't use GHA again. Even if I end up paying another vendor, at least I'll be treated as a customer.

[1] - https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/160682#discuss...

Re: Pricing Changes for GitHub Actions

#132

Post by kjuulh »

tracker1 wrote: post #103
kjuulh wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've self-hosted github actions in the past, and self-hosting it doesn't help all that much with the fragile part. For github it is just as much triggering the actions as it is running them. ;) I hope the product gets some investment, because it has been unstable for such a long time, that on the inside it must be just the usual right now. GitHub has by far the worst uptime of any SaaS tools we use at the moment, an…

I tend to just rely on the platform installers, then write my own process scripts to handle the work beyond the runners. Lets me exercise most of the process without having to (re)run the ci/cd processes over and over, which can be cumbersome, and a pain when they do break. The only self-hosted runners I've used have been for internalized deployments separate from the build or (pre)test processes. Aside: I've come to…

We choose github actions because it was tied directly to github providing the best pull-request experience etc. We actually didn't really use github actions templating as we'd got our own stuff for that, so the only thing github actions actually had to do was start, run a few light jobs as the CI was technically run elsewhere and then report the final status.

When you've got many 100s of services managing these in actions yaml itself is no bueno. As you mentioned having the option to actually be able to run the CI/CD yourself is a must. Having to wait 5 minutes plus many commits just to test an action drains you very fast.

Granted we did end up making the CI so fast (~ 1 minute with dependency cache, ~4 minutes without), that we saw devs running their setup less and less on their personal workstations for development. Except when github actions went down... ;) We used Jenkins self-hosted before and it was far more stable, but a pain to maintain and understand.

Re: Pricing Changes for GitHub Actions

#133

Post by misnome »

zahlman wrote: post #55
MathiasPius wrote: post #16

Introducing a separate charge specifically targeting those of your customers who choose to self-host your hilariously fragile infrastructure is certainly a choice.. And one I assume is in no way tied to adoption/usage-based KPIs. Of course, if you can just fence in your competition and charge admission, it'd be silly to invest time in building a superior product.

Meanwhile I'm just running `pytest`, `pyproject-build`, `twine` etc. at the command line.... (People seem to object to this comment. I genuinely do not understand why.)

Because you appear completely oblivious and deliberately naive about the entire purpose of CI.

Re: Pricing Changes for GitHub Actions

#134

Post by stephen_cagle »

The email I received from them this morning claims that this will be cheaper for 96% of users...

I have cron jobs on several github projects that runs once a day and I have never been charged anything for it (other than my github membership). Should I expect to be charged for this?

Re: Pricing Changes for GitHub Actions

#135

Post by sylens »

Arcuru wrote: post #2

> We are introducing a $0.002 per-minute Actions cloud platform charge for all Actions workflows across GitHub-hosted and self-hosted runners. Charging for self-hosted runners is an interesting choice. That's the same cost as their smallest hosted runners [1] [1] - https://docs.github.com/en/billing/reference/actions-runner-...

Pushing you towards their hosted runners which will show up in their Azure usage numbers and drive the stock price

Re: Pricing Changes for GitHub Actions

#136

Post by eduardogarza »

This is my first comment on HN despite being a user for over a decade -- this is one of the most outrageous pricing changes I've encountered - I couldn't believe it when I read the email earlier (I run self-hosted runners).

Anyone using GitLab or any other VCM that you'd recommend? I'm absolutely done with Github. Or is everything else just as bad?

Re: Pricing Changes for GitHub Actions

#137

Post by suryao »

joshstrange wrote: post #130

Ahh, so since GitHub is completely incompetent when it comes to managing a CI they are going to make it worse for everyone to get their cut. I hate GH Action runners with a passion. They are slow, overpriced, and clearly held together with duct tape and chewing gum. WarpBuild, on the other hand, was a breeze to setup and provided faster runners and lower prices. This is a really shitty move. Hey GitHub, your Microsof…

Hey - thanks for the WarpBuild love!

Given github ran 11.5 billion mins of actions in 2025, and most of them would've been on self-hosted runners, this move makes some sense from their POV.

However, this is still an... interesting... move, especially after bitbucket got all that hate a few weeks ago for doing something similar.

Re: Pricing Changes for GitHub Actions

#138

Post by 999900000999 »

There has to be a VC in this thread, go ahead and fund a GitHub competitor that offers a flat monthly(yearly?) rate.

Focus on the enterprise. Something like a 3000$ minimum yearly price. Direct customer support with real engineers no questions asked.

Need someone to setup your CICD, that's another fee, but on staff engineers will get it done.

Edit: I'd even imagine a company like this can bootstrap, I'd need help though. Would probably take 4 skilled SWEs about 6 months for an MVP.

Re: Pricing Changes for GitHub Actions

#140

Post by mtlynch »

>In the past, our customers have asked us how GitHub views third-party runners long-term. The platform fee largely answers that: GitHub now monetizes Actions usage regardless of where jobs run, aligning third-party runners like Blacksmith as ecosystem partners rather than workarounds.

It does? I feel like it implies that they want third-party runners like Blacksmith out of the ecosystem, which is why they're now financially penalizing customers who use them.

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