3 ms·

GitHub Actions computing time is crazy expensive. Especially the Mac prices.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
judge2020 3y ago
Running macOS legally requires real mac servers and a bespoke storage solution: https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/analysis/not-just-stacks-macs-racks/ https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/analysis/not-just-stac... A self-hosted macOS runner will be more economical in the long-run, if you have a spot you can hook it up at; or, if you're fine doing things less than legally, you can use https://github.com/sickcodes/Docker-OSX https://github.com/sickcodes/Docker-OSX.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  I'm sure legality depends on jurisdiction, too. If you acquired the software legally and you need to keep it running in a VM, I'm sure it's legal at least in some places. But yeah, just drive-by-downloading MacOS to your Windows box it is probably not quite on the up and up.
- chpatrick 3y ago
  Or get one from Hetzner (there's one in the server finder right now for 64/month).
- 255kb 3y ago
  To add to this, they recently published a video showing how they provision and manage their macOS runners: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2J2MzKjcqY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2J2MzKjcqY
xjia 3y ago
We are working on an alternative that's 100% compatible with GHA but much cheaper and faster. Check out https://dime.run/ https://dime.run/
tomschlick 3y ago
They also price gouge by charging each job you run as per minute rounded up. So if you have 5 10 second actions that run when a PR is created, that 50 seconds of compute is charged as 5 minutes.
- Retr0id 3y ago
  Is it really price gouging, or just embodying the real warmup costs of spinning up a job?
- almostdeadguy 3y ago
  I truly don't understand why this isn't more widely discussed (I've seen several "GH Actions Gotchas" articles where this isn't mentioned). Many of the community actions also seem to be designed to run as short jobs to paper around missing features (for ex: https://github.com/dorny/paths-filter https://github.com/dorny/paths-filter ), that end up eating up an enormous amount of your minutes budget.
wilg 3y ago
Highly recommend everyone check out the self-hosted runners. GitHub has made it crazy easy to set up and all your actions are free and can have local cache. And you get all the benefits of the Actions ecosystem. Throw a used Mac mini or old PC or whatever at it.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

judge2020 3y ago

Running macOS legally requires real mac servers and a bespoke storage solution: https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/analysis/not-just-stacks-macs-racks/ https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/analysis/not-just-stac... A self-hosted macOS runner will be more economical in the long-run, if you have a spot you can hook it up at; or, if you're fine doing things less than legally, you can use https://github.com/sickcodes/Docker-OSX https://github.com/sickcodes/Docker-OSX.

actionfromafar 3y ago
I'm sure legality depends on jurisdiction, too. If you acquired the software legally and you need to keep it running in a VM, I'm sure it's legal at least in some places. But yeah, just drive-by-downloading MacOS to your Windows box it is probably not quite on the up and up.
chpatrick 3y ago
Or get one from Hetzner (there's one in the server finder right now for 64/month).
255kb 3y ago
To add to this, they recently published a video showing how they provision and manage their macOS runners: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2J2MzKjcqY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2J2MzKjcqY

xjia 3y ago

We are working on an alternative that's 100% compatible with GHA but much cheaper and faster. Check out https://dime.run/ https://dime.run/

tomschlick 3y ago

They also price gouge by charging each job you run as per minute rounded up. So if you have 5 10 second actions that run when a PR is created, that 50 seconds of compute is charged as 5 minutes.

Retr0id 3y ago
Is it really price gouging, or just embodying the real warmup costs of spinning up a job?
almostdeadguy 3y ago
I truly don't understand why this isn't more widely discussed (I've seen several "GH Actions Gotchas" articles where this isn't mentioned). Many of the community actions also seem to be designed to run as short jobs to paper around missing features (for ex: https://github.com/dorny/paths-filter https://github.com/dorny/paths-filter ), that end up eating up an enormous amount of your minutes budget.

wilg 3y ago

Highly recommend everyone check out the self-hosted runners. GitHub has made it crazy easy to set up and all your actions are free and can have local cache. And you get all the benefits of the Actions ecosystem. Throw a used Mac mini or old PC or whatever at it.