Actuated vs compiler.dev: MicroVM Runners

Actuated runs GitHub Actions jobs in short-lived microVMs on servers that you provide, and charges a flat subscription per server instead of per minute. compiler.dev runs jobs on its own machines and charges per minute. Actuated suits teams with spare or rented bare-metal servers, big steady CI loads, or jobs that need nested virtualization. compiler.dev suits teams that want no servers to run at all. Prices were checked in October 2026 on Actuated's pricing page.

What Actuated is

Actuated is a scheduler and agent. You register your GitHub organization, provision a server, and install the agent. It then creates a fast-booting microVM for each job, with full root inside the VM and no access to the host, and removes it when the build ends. Its docs say boot takes about one to two seconds including Docker starting. Many VMs are packed onto each host, and it can spread jobs over a fleet of servers or a single machine.

The hosts must be bare metal, such as AWS metal instances, on-premises machines, or providers that support nested virtualization (its docs cite GCP and DigitalOcean). That requirement is the point: because each job is a real VM, you can run Docker, Kubernetes, KVM or Firecracker inside a job, which is hard on ordinary shared runners.

The price is simple. Self-Service is $150 a month for the first server and $125 a month for each additional server, with unlimited build minutes, RAM, CPUs and concurrency. Support is best-effort by email. There is also reporting across orgs, repos and users, SSH debugging of jobs and Prometheus metrics. The pricing page shows no trial.

What you actually pay

The subscription is only the Actuated part. The server is separate. You can buy or rent a bare-metal machine, use an ARM box, or reuse hardware you already own. Its own page compares one self-hosted server at $150 a month against GitHub's 8-core runner at $960 a month for continuous use. That is a comparison against full-time use of a single runner, so it flatters the case for busy teams. A team with 3,000 minutes a month would be better served by per-minute billing.

Side-by-side

The break-even figure is $150 divided by $0.012. It leaves out your server cost, which for a bare-metal machine is probably several times the subscription. The real comparison is subscription plus server per month against minutes times the rate.

Where Actuated is the better choice

• You have heavy, steady CI. Unlimited minutes on a server makes sense when the machine is busy most of the day. Our GitHub Actions pricing guide explains why flat pricing helps at high volume.
• You need VMs inside jobs. Testing Kubernetes operators, KVM or microVM software is a natural fit.
• You must keep code on your own hardware or on a bare-metal provider you choose.
• You want control of the hardware shape. Any CPU or RAM size on your server is yours to schedule.
• You want job debugging over SSH and Prometheus metrics on the fleet.

Where compiler.dev is the better choice

• You do not want to run servers. No patching, no capacity planning, no agent updates.
• Your usage is bursty. You pay only for minutes used, and prepaid credit never expires.
• You want something running in minutes. Install the app, change one runs-on line.
• You want a safety net. If compiler.dev has an issue or credit runs out, your original runners take the job.
• You want third-party measurements. Our benchmarks report full-pipeline times on 18 stacks, median 1.5× faster (15 faster, 2 the same, 1 slower) than GitHub-hosted (15 of 18 faster, 2 the same, 1 slower). We have not benchmarked Actuated; its speed depends entirely on the server you give it.

How to switch

Actuated labels are set by your installation and its docs describe custom VM sizes. An example from a public Arm64 build setup shows the pattern:

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: actuated-arm64-8cpu-8gb

Confirm the label names in Actuated's own docs before using them, since the x64 form was not in the pages we read. To compiler.dev:

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: [self-hosted, Linux, compiler-ci]

Install the app at app.compiler.dev. Both are self-hosted-style labels, so the YAML change is small. Keep in mind that jobs which rely on nested virtualization or special host features will not work on compiler.dev's standard machines.

Which one for your team

Count your monthly minutes and multiply by $0.012 (or the size you need). If that is under the cost of a server plus $150, hosted per-minute billing is cheaper and simpler. If it is far above, a server pool starts to pay off, provided someone will run it. The cost calculator can do the first half; the self-hosted vs GitHub-hosted guide covers the operating side; and the provider ranking shows where Actuated fits among the rest.

FAQ

How much does Actuated cost?

$150 a month for the first server and $125 for each additional one on the Self-Service plan, with unlimited minutes and concurrency. You also pay for the servers (checked October 2026).

Does Actuated provide the servers?

Not in the pricing we read. Hosts are bare metal or nested-virtualization servers you provide, such as on-premises machines or cloud metal instances.

Is Actuated the same as Firecracker?

Actuated runs jobs in microVMs. Its docs call them fast-booting microVMs and mention Firecracker only in a testimonial, so we do not state which VM monitor it uses.

Is Actuated cheaper than compiler.dev?

Only at high, steady volume and once you count your own server cost. For bursty or small usage, per-minute billing is usually cheaper.