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Depot vs RunsOn
Short answer: Pick Depot if you want fast, scalable container builds and CI; pick RunsOn if you want cheap, scalable CI on AWS. Depot has a free plan, paid from $20/month; RunsOn has a free plan.
Which to pick
Pick Depot if you want…
- Fast, scalable container builds and CI
- Integrations with GitHub, CI providers or AWS (on Depot's list, not RunsOn's)
Pick RunsOn if you want…
- Cheap, scalable CI on AWS
- Low-cost CI compute
- Open-source code (runs-on/runs-on on GitHub, MIT license)
- Integrations with CloudFormation or Terraform (on RunsOn's list, not Depot's)
Side by side
- What it is
- Depot:Depot provides remote, fast Docker container builds, CI, caching, registry and sandbox services for scalable software delivery.
- RunsOn:RunsOn runs GitHub Actions jobs on on-demand AWS EC2 instances, cutting CI cost and latency.
- Best for
- Depot:Fast, scalable container builds and CI
- RunsOn:Cheap, scalable CI on AWS
- Who it’s for
- Depot:Engineering teams needing high-throughput builds and CI for AI-scale workloads.
- RunsOn:Engineering teams that self-host CI on AWS and use GitHub Actions.
- Pricing
- Depot:Freemium
- RunsOn:Paid
- Starting price
- Depot:$20/month (Developer)
- RunsOn:—
- Free plan or trial
- Depot:Free trial
- RunsOn:Free plan (Free (non-commercial)) · Free trial
- Plans
- Depot:Developer $20 per month · Startup $200 per month
- RunsOn:Starter €300/ year per year · Enterprise €3,600/ year per year · Free (non-commercial) free
- Open source
- Depot:—
- RunsOn:Yes, 1,339 GitHub stars
- Works with
- Depot:GitHub Actions, GitHub, CI providers, AWS
- RunsOn:GitHub Actions, CloudFormation, Terraform
Depot features
- 40x Faster Container Builds. Remote builds on native Intel & Arm hardware with zero-emulation, delivering up to 40× speedup.
- 10x Faster CI Engine. Programmable CI with unlimited concurrency and per-second billing.
- Shared Persistent Cache. Fast, shared cache across builds backed by NVMe storage.
- Depot Registry. High-throughput container registry with private, authenticated access.
- Agent Sandboxes. Ephemeral, isolated environments for agents and humans with fine-grained RBAC.
- Security & Governance. SSO/SAML, audit logging, SOC 2 Type II compliance, and role-based access control.
- Multi-Platform Support. Builds for both Intel and Arm platforms, including macOS and Windows runners.
RunsOn features
- Dynamic instance selection. Specify CPU, RAM, architecture or GPU in a label and RunsOn launches the matching EC2 spot or on-demand instance.
- Fast job startup. Typical 30 s from queued to running; warm pools can reduce latency to under 6 s.
- Unlimited machine types. Any EC2 instance type, including x64, ARM64 and GPU, can be used per job.
- S3-backed caching. Add extras=s3-cache to use an unlimited S3 bucket in your VPC for cache storage.
- Nested virtualization. KVM for Linux and Hyper-V for Windows enable Android emulators, VM-based e2e tests and Windows containers.
- Per-job isolation. Each job runs on a fresh VM that is terminated when the job finishes, keeping data private.
Depot vs RunsOn FAQ
What is the difference between Depot and RunsOn?+
RunsOn offers cheaper CI compute, but Depot adds container builds, caching, registry and sandbox services.
Should I use Depot or RunsOn?+
Pick Depot if you want fast, scalable container builds and CI or integrations with GitHub, CI providers or AWS (on Depot's list, not RunsOn's). Pick RunsOn if you want cheap, scalable CI on AWS, low-cost CI compute or open-source code (runs-on/runs-on on GitHub, MIT license).
Is Depot or RunsOn free?+
Depot has a free plan; paid plans start at $20/month (Developer). RunsOn has a free plan (Free (non-commercial)) and paid plans.
Is Depot or RunsOn open source?+
RunsOn is open source (runs-on/runs-on on GitHub, MIT license). DevHunt has no public source repository on record for Depot.
Do Depot and RunsOn integrate with the same tools?+
Partly. Both list GitHub Actions. Depot also lists GitHub, CI providers and AWS; RunsOn also lists CloudFormation and Terraform.
On DevHunt
Based on each tool's website and DevHunt data. Details may change; check the official sites.