Pick Blacksmith if
cI teams who will try Blacksmith for free, then stay on Ubuntu at $0.004 / minute when GitHub-hosted runners are the bill they want to cut.
Read the Blacksmith pageBlacksmith vs Buildkite
Our take
Pick Blacksmith if cI teams who will try Blacksmith for free, then stay on Ubuntu at $0.004 / minute when GitHub-hosted runners are the bill they want to cut. Pick Buildkite if cI teams who will stay on Free at $0 while they create a first pipeline, then buy Pro at $30 / active user / month when they need more than 10 self-hosted agents or hosted minutes.
Blacksmith
hosted GitHub Actions runner
Best for
Blacksmith Actions minutes you pay per minute
Buildkite YAML steps you start at $0 (self-hosted agents or hosted minutes)
Free plan
Blacksmith No free plan
Buildkite $0 · solo / small teams. Up to 250 concurrent jobs and 50 active users on the compare we fetched
Lowest paid
Blacksmith Ubuntu ARM $0.0025
Buildkite Linux hosted agents $0.004
Next step up
Blacksmith Ubuntu x64 $0.004
Buildkite Mac hosted agents $0.02
Coding agent
Blacksmith
Buildkite Self-hosted agents
Runs where
Blacksmith Local or hosted
Buildkite Local or hosted
Watch out
Blacksmith Try for free is not a forever Free plan
Buildkite Free $0 is not unlimited hosted minutes
Last checked
Blacksmith 2026-10-23 · blacksmith.sh/pricing
Buildkite 2026-10-23 · buildkite.com/pricing
Which one, then?
Pick Buildkite if
cI teams who will stay on Free at $0 while they create a first pipeline, then buy Pro at $30 / active user / month when they need more than 10 self-hosted agents or hosted minutes.
Read the Buildkite page