# GitHub Actions

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/ci-cd/github-actions/

CI/CD built into GitHub, billed per minute on hosted runners and free on self-hosted ones.

## Who it suits

Repos already on GitHub — no separate CI product to wire up, and self-hosted runners cost nothing to use beyond the hardware itself.

Consider something else if Heavy macOS usage — at $0.062/minute it's by far the most expensive runner type here, and a dedicated CI product may price Mac builds differently.

## What the documentation says

### Pricing

- Free tier: Yes ([source](https://docs.github.com/en/billing/managing-billing-for-your-products/managing-billing-for-github-actions/about-billing-for-github-actions), read 2026-09-11)
- Pricing model: Per-minute billing beyond the included allowance: $0.006/minute (Linux), $0.010/minute (Windows), $0.062/minute (macOS). Artifact storage overage $0.25/GB-month; cache storage overage $0.07/GB-month. ([source](https://docs.github.com/en/billing/managing-billing-for-your-products/managing-billing-for-github-actions/about-billing-for-github-actions), read 2026-09-11)

### Limits

- Build allowance: 2,000 minutes/month on GitHub Free; 3,000 on Pro and Team; 50,000 on Enterprise Cloud. ([source](https://docs.github.com/en/billing/managing-billing-for-your-products/managing-billing-for-github-actions/about-billing-for-github-actions), read 2026-09-11)

### CI/CD

- Max job duration: Up to 6 hours of execution time per job on GitHub-hosted runners. A job that exceeds this is terminated and fails. ([source](https://docs.github.com/en/actions/reference/limits), read 2026-09-11)
- Self-hosted runners: Free for self-hosted runners — no usage charges beyond the runner's own infrastructure cost. ([source](https://docs.github.com/en/billing/managing-billing-for-your-products/managing-billing-for-github-actions/about-billing-for-github-actions), read 2026-09-11)

## Compared with

- [GitHub Actions vs CircleCI](https://inetgeek.com/compare/github-actions-vs-circleci/)
- [GitHub Actions vs Buildkite](https://inetgeek.com/compare/github-actions-vs-buildkite/)