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Pricing Changes for GitHub Actions

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Re: Pricing Changes for GitHub Actions

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They still host all artefacts and logs for these self-hosted runs. Probably costs them a fair bit

[flagged]

I don't work for Microsoft (in fact, I work for a competitor), and I think it's totally reasonable to charge for workflow executions. It's not like they're free to build, operate, and maintain.

Re: Pricing Changes for GitHub Actions

#382
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They still run the whole orchestration. If you don't want to pay, you'd have to not use GitHub Actions at all, maybe by using their API to test new commits and PRs and mark them as failed or passed.

Everyone who has Actions built into their workflow now has to go change it. Microsoft just conned a bunch more people with the same classic tech lock-in strategy they've always pursued, people are right to be pissed. The only learning to take away is never ever use anything from the big tech companies, even if it seems easier or cheaper right now to do so, because they're just waiting for the right moment to try and…

> Microsoft just conned a bunch more people with the same classic tech lock-in strategy they've always pursued, people are right to be pissed

People would be better served by not expecting anything different from Microsoft. As you say yourself, this is how they roll.

> The only learning to take away is never ever use anything from the big tech companies

Do you even believe in this yourself? Not being dependent on them would be a good start.

Re: Pricing Changes for GitHub Actions

#384

> Coming soon: Simpler pricing and a better experience for GitHub Actions i think it should be illegal or otherwise extremely damaging to do this kind of thing

Come on, editorializing the post title is against HN guidelines, but making it illegal is a bit too harsh.

Re: Pricing Changes for GitHub Actions

#385
post #318

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 th…

This kinda change also has some different gears turning in my head. At $0.002 / build-minute, some of our large software integration tests would cost us around 15 - 20 cents. Some of our ansible integration tests would be 5 - 10 cents - and we run like 50 - 100 of those per day. Some deployments might cost us a cent or two. Apples to oranges, naturally, but like this, our infra-jenkins master would pay for itself in…

> Sure, maintenance is a thing, but honestly, flinging java, docker and a few other things onto a build agent isn't the time-consuming part of maintaining CI infrastructure.

Depending on your workplace, there's a whole extra layer of bureaucracy and compliance involved if you self-host things. I aggressively avoid managing any VMs for that reason alone.

Re: Pricing Changes for GitHub Actions

#386
post #331

I'm happy to see they're investing in Actions — charging for it should help make sure it continues to work. It's a huge reason Github is so valuable: having the status checks run on every PR, automatically, is great. Even though I'm more of a fan of Buildkite when it comes to configuring the workflows, I still need something to kick them off when PRs change, etc. Charging a per-workflow-minute platform fee makes a lo…

> charging for it should help make sure it continues to work It's there a particular reason you're extending the benefit of the doubt here? This seems like the classic playbook of making something free, waiting for people to depend on it, then charging for it, all in order to maximize revenue. Where does the idea that they're really doing this in order to deliver a more valuable service come from?

I appreciate being able to pay for a service I rely on. Using self-hosted runners, I previously paid nothing for Github Actions — now I do pay something for it. The price is extremely cheap and seems reasonable considering the benefits I receive. They've shown continued interest in investing in the product, and have a variety of things on their public roadmap that I'm looking forward to (including parallel steps) — https://github.com/orgs/github/projects/4247?pane=issue&item....

Charging "more than nothing" is certainly not what I would call maximizing revenue, and even it they were maximizing revenue I would still make the same decision to purchase or abandon based on its value to me. Have you interacted with the economy before?

Re: Pricing Changes for GitHub Actions

#388

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?

"Outrageous"? It's two tenths of a cent per minute. How much will it impact you, really, particularly relative to the cost of compute?

Re: Pricing Changes for GitHub Actions

#389

I'm happy to see they're investing in Actions — charging for it should help make sure it continues to work. It's a huge reason Github is so valuable: having the status checks run on every PR, automatically, is great. Even though I'm more of a fan of Buildkite when it comes to configuring the workflows, I still need something to kick them off when PRs change, etc. Charging a per-workflow-minute platform fee makes a lo…

This pricing model will continue to incentivize them internally to not fix the hundreds of clearly documented issues that causes CI to be incredibly slow. Everything from their self-inflicted bottlenecking of file transfers to the safe_sleep bug that randomly makes a runner run forever until it times out. All of it now makes them more money

Re: Pricing Changes for GitHub Actions

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes ! i'm actually doing the same as i saw the safe_sleep.sh code on their runners ... insane story ...

Can you elaborate on what you're referring to? Sounds interesting.

https://github.com/actions/runner/issues/3792

fun video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3_95BZYIVs

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