Guides
How to cut macOS runner costs
macOS dominates the CI bill.
5 min read
macOS dominates the CI bill.
Why it happens
macOS bills at roughly ten times the Linux rate on GitHub, and teams often run non-Xcode work on it out of convenience.
How to fix it
- Move everything that does not require Xcode to Linux — linting, JS tests, backend code
- Persist DerivedData so incremental builds stop rebuilding from scratch
- Pin simulator runtimes to preinstalled versions to avoid multi-minute downloads
- Use a provider priced below GitHub's macOS rate
Your next build could be twice as fast, at half the price
Start free. Migrating away is the same one line, and we publish that diff too.
Related
How to reduce GitHub Actions costsThe CI bill grows faster than the team and nobody is sure why.How to measure CI cost per pull requestYou know the monthly total but not what a single pull request costs.How to attribute CI cost to teamsCI spend is one line on the invoice and no team feels responsible for it.How to set a CI minutes budgetSpend is discovered at the end of the month rather than controlled during it.