Blacksmith's bare-metal GitHub Actions runners ran 3–4x faster than GitHub-hosted in 10-trial test

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An independent developer benchmarked Blacksmith's GitHub Actions runners against GitHub's default ubuntu-latest runners across 10 trials, timing identical Node.js scripts on each. Blacksmith's 4-vCPU Ubuntu 24.04 runner completed one script 3.17x faster and another 3.77x faster, with no overlap in timing ranges between the two runner types. Blacksmith sells runners on bare-metal hardware using Firecracker microVMs and raised a $45M Series B at a $550M valuation in March 2026. However, the tester flagged a key limitation: Blacksmith does not support personal GitHub repositories and only works with organisation accounts, despite advertising a free tier with no credit card required. The evaluation also encountered setup friction, including a silent job cancellation and an auto-generated migration pull request that appeared without user request after installing the GitHub App.

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