Blacksmith CI
Blacksmith CI is a drop-in replacement for GitHub Actions runners, designed to significantly speed up CI/CD pipelines and reduce costs.
Our verdict
Who it's for
Run your GitHub Actions faster and more cost-effectively with enhanced observability.
Who should look elsewhere
Specific advanced support features are add-ons or require Enterprise plan.
Pros
- +Significantly faster CI/CD pipeline execution.
- +Substantial cost savings compared to GitHub runners.
- +Improved visibility and debugging capabilities for CI failures.
- +Easy to integrate as a drop-in replacement.
- +Free tier available for getting started.
Cons
- −Specific advanced support features are add-ons or require Enterprise plan.
- −Currently focused on GitHub Actions, may not support other CI platforms.
Key features
- ✓2x faster hardware (bare metal gaming CPUs)
- ✓4x faster cache downloads (co-located artifacts)
- ✓40x faster Docker Builds (persistent layers on NVMe drives)
- ✓GitHub Actions observability console
- ✓Spot failing and slow jobs
- ✓Debug flaky tests with global log search
- ✓Inline logs of failed tests in GitHub comments
- ✓Instant microVM provisioning
Pricing
| Plan | Price | Billing | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pay-As-You-Go | $0.004 | month | 3K free min/mo (on 2 vCPU runners, scales accordingly for larger runners); 2x faster hardware; 4x faster cache downloads |
| Enterprise | — | month | Includes Pay-As-You-Go features; Enterprise free trial; White-glove onboarding |
Integrations
GitHub