Continuous Integration Hosting
Your own CI runner — fast builds, no per-minute meter
Self-hosted GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Forgejo Actions, Drone, Woodpecker, or Buildkite — dedicated cores, NVMe, a cache that stays warm, and zero build-minute charges.
Why VPSoto for continuous integration hosting
Faster than hosted runners
GitHub's standard runner is 2 vCPU, shared, cold-cache every run. A dedicated VPS keeps your dependency cache, Docker layers, and toolchains warm on NVMe — builds that drag on hosted runners finish in a fraction of the time.
Cores that are actually yours
No queueing behind other repos, no throttling. A 4-vCPU VPS gives a `make -j4` or a parallel test suite four real cores, every time.
Any CI, self-hosted
GitHub Actions runner, GitLab Runner (Docker or shell executor), Forgejo/Gitea Actions, Drone, Woodpecker, Buildkite agent, Jenkins agent, Concourse worker — install the agent, register it, you're building.
Builds inside your perimeter
Your code, secrets, and artifacts never touch a third-party runner pool. For private repos and regulated work, the runner lives on a box you control, in a country you choose.
Disposable by design
Snapshot a clean runner image; if a flaky build leaves junk behind, restore in seconds. Or run each job in an ephemeral Docker container — fresh environment every time, on the same persistent host.
What you'll need
- cpu
- 2 vCPU matches a hosted GitHub runner; 4 vCPU for parallel test suites or heavy compiles; 8+ for big monorepos or container builds all day
- ram
- 2–4 GB for typical web-app CI; 8 GB+ for Rust/C++/Android builds, big test matrices, or several concurrent jobs
- storage
- 40–80 GB NVMe — caches, Docker layers, and `node_modules`/`target`/`.gradle` add up; 160 GB+ for monorepos or many concurrent jobs
- bandwidth
- 1–3 TB covers normal CI traffic (pulling deps, pushing artifacts); bump it if you push large artifacts or container images
Recommended cities
Pick the city closest to your users — every plan listed below is the cheapest qualifying VPS for that location.
The honest take on continuous integration hosting
Hosted CI runners are convenient until the bill arrives — or the queue does. GitHub Actions, GitLab.com, and CircleCI all meter build minutes, and once a team gets busy that line item climbs fast. A self-hosted runner flips it: a $5–$15 VPS runs your builds for a flat monthly price, and because the cache (npm/pnpm, Docker layers, `~/.cargo`, `~/.gradle`, `~/.m2`) lives on local NVMe and stays warm between runs, builds are often *faster* than on a cold, shared hosted runner.
Setup is a few minutes per platform. GitHub Actions: download the runner, run `./config.sh` with a registration token, `./svc.sh install` — your repo's workflows now run on your box. GitLab: `gitlab-runner register` with a project/group token, pick the Docker executor for isolated jobs or shell for speed. Forgejo/Gitea Actions, Drone, Woodpecker, Buildkite, and Jenkins agents all follow the same shape: install the agent, register it with a token, it polls for work.
For isolation, run each job in an ephemeral Docker container on a persistent host — a clean environment per build, but the image cache and base layers stay warm. For raw speed on trusted code, the shell/host executor skips container overhead entirely. Either way you're not sharing a 2-vCPU box with the rest of the internet.
Pick a city near your team, or near the services your tests hit (your staging API, your container registry), to shave latency off every run. Need a fleet of runners, or builds that peg 8+ cores for minutes — Android, Chromium, big Rust workspaces? Scale to a bigger VPS or a dedicated server; a bare-metal Ryzen with 8–16 cores eats CI for breakfast.
Frequently asked questions
- Will a self-hosted runner really be faster than GitHub's?
- Often, yes — two reasons. First, you can give it more cores than a standard hosted runner (2 vCPU). Second, and bigger: your dependency cache, Docker layers, and toolchains persist on local NVMe between runs, so you skip the cold-cache penalty that hits every hosted run. A build that's 8 minutes on a fresh GitHub runner can be 2–3 minutes on a warm self-hosted one.
- Is it safe to use a self-hosted runner with public repos?
- Be careful: public repos can run workflows from forked PRs, and a shell-executor runner would execute that code on your box. Use ephemeral Docker-in-Docker jobs, or restrict the runner to private repos / trusted workflows only. For private repos it's straightforward — that's the common case.
- Which CI platforms does this work with?
- All the self-hostable ones: GitHub Actions (self-hosted runners), GitLab Runner, Forgejo/Gitea Actions, Drone, Woodpecker CI, Buildkite agents, Jenkins agents, Concourse workers, TeamCity agents. Install the agent, register it with a token from your CI, it picks up jobs. A 2-vCPU/4 GB VPS is a solid single runner; scale up for parallelism.
- How much VPS do I need for CI?
- 2 vCPU / 4 GB matches a hosted GitHub runner and handles most web-app pipelines. Go to 4 vCPU / 8 GB for parallel test suites or container builds, and 8+ cores (a dedicated server) for big compiles — Android, C++, large Rust monorepos — or running several jobs at once.
- Can one VPS run runners for multiple repos?
- Yes — register multiple runners on the same host (each scoped to a repo, group, or org), or one runner several repos share. The constraint is concurrency: a 2-vCPU box runs one heavy job well; a 4–8 vCPU box runs two or three. There's no per-runner or per-minute fee.
Ready to deploy?
Pick a plan, pick a city, your server is live within 1–2 hours. Pay by card or crypto in your currency. 7-day money-back, cancel any time.