cirun.io provisions self-hosted GitHub Actions and GitLab CI runners on your own cloud account. See pricing, features, pros, cons, and FAQs.
Category
Productivity
Pricing
Freemium subscription based on the number of private repositories connected; free for public and open-source repositories, from Free for open source; paid plans start at 29 dollars per month for up to 3 private repositories
Verified
Not yet
Last updated
July 19, 2026
Founded
2021
Headquarters
London, United Kingdom
What cirun.io Does
cirun.io orchestrates self-hosted CI runners for GitHub Actions and GitLab CI, provisioning ephemeral virtual machines on a customer's own cloud account for each job and tearing them down once the job finishes. This differs fundamentally from GitHub's or GitLab's own hosted runners, which run on infrastructure owned and billed by GitHub or GitLab directly.
Configuration happens through a repository file, dot-cirun-dot-yml, where teams specify labels tied to instance types, regions, and cloud providers, letting individual workflow jobs request exactly the hardware they need, including GPU or ARM-based machines.
How Pricing and Billing Work
cirun.io charges a subscription fee for its orchestration service based on the number of private repositories connected, while public and open-source repositories are supported free of charge with unlimited runners across supported cloud providers.
Separately, the actual virtual machine compute time is billed directly by the customer's cloud provider of choice, meaning organizations retain full visibility and control over their cloud spend and can apply existing discounts, reserved instances, or spot pricing.
Company Background
cirun.io is built and maintained by Aktech Labs, a London-based engineering consultancy that also takes on client work spanning web development, machine learning, big data, and operations research.
The project is described as financially self-sustaining, funded by customer revenue rather than outside venture investment, which the team presents as a deliberate choice to keep product decisions focused on user needs.
Key Features
Self-hosted runner orchestration — Automatically provisions and tears down ephemeral virtual machines to serve as CI runners for each GitHub Actions or GitLab CI job.
Multi-cloud provider support — Works across AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud, DigitalOcean, and on-premise OpenStack environments.
GPU and ARM runner support — Supports provisioning GPU-enabled and ARM-architecture virtual machines for specialized workloads like machine learning pipelines.
Repository-level YAML configuration — Runner definitions, including instance type, region, and provider, are configured directly in a dot-cirun-dot-yml file within the repository.
Free unlimited use for open source — Public and open-source repositories get unlimited runners and unlimited usage across all supported cloud providers at no cost.
Direct cloud billing transparency — Compute costs are billed directly by the customer's own cloud provider rather than marked up by cirun.io, preserving existing discounts and pricing agreements.
GitHub Actions and GitLab CI compatibility — Integrates with both major CI systems, rather than locking teams into a single vendor's workflow syntax.
Tiered support levels — Higher-priced plans add Slack and email support alongside increased private repository limits.
Pros & Cons
Pros
Compute is billed directly by the customer's own cloud provider, avoiding markup on machine time
Free and unlimited for public and open-source repositories
Supports specialized hardware like GPUs and ARM instances that default hosted runners often lack
Works across multiple major cloud providers rather than locking users into one ecosystem
Simple, declarative repository-level configuration through a single YAML file
Financially self-sustaining company model, reducing pressure toward pricing changes driven by investor demands
Cons
Requires a customer-owned cloud account, adding setup and cloud-side configuration complexity compared to fully hosted CI runners
Total cost of ownership requires factoring in both cirun.io's subscription fee and separate, variable cloud provider billing
Private repository tiers are priced by repository count, which can become costly for organizations with many private repos
As a small, independently run company, its support resources and pace of feature development are more limited than large-scale hosted CI vendors
Best value is realized by teams with meaningful cloud infrastructure needs, making it less compelling for very small or hobby projects
Pricing
Open Source 0 monthly
Startup 29 dollars monthly
Business 79 dollars monthly
Enterprise 99 dollars monthly
Enterprise Plus 499 dollars monthly
Frequently Asked Questions
What does cirun.io actually do
cirun.io provisions self-hosted GitHub Actions and GitLab CI runners as ephemeral virtual machines on a customer's own cloud account, automatically creating and destroying them per job.
Is cirun.io free
It is free for public and open-source repositories with unlimited runners. Private repositories require a paid plan starting at 29 dollars per month for up to 3 private repos.
Who owns the compute cost when using cirun.io
The customer's cloud provider bills compute costs directly; cirun.io only charges its own subscription fee for the orchestration service.
Which cloud providers does cirun.io support
cirun.io supports AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud, DigitalOcean, and on-premise OpenStack environments.
Does cirun.io support GPU runners
Yes, cirun.io supports provisioning GPU-enabled virtual machines as runners, useful for machine learning and other compute-intensive CI workloads.
Who built cirun.io
cirun.io is developed and maintained by Aktech Labs, a London-based engineering consultancy, with public GitHub activity dating back to around 2021.
Does cirun.io work with both GitHub Actions and GitLab CI
Yes, cirun.io supports self-hosted runner orchestration for both GitHub Actions and GitLab CI pipelines.
How is a cirun.io runner configured
Runners are configured through a dot-cirun-dot-yml file placed in the repository, specifying labels tied to cloud provider, instance type, and region.