Blacksmith Blog
blacksmith.sh · Company blog · on HN since 2024
Blacksmith, a Y Combinator-backed company selling faster, cheaper GitHub Actions runners, writes on CI, caching, and multitenancy economics.
What HN saysHN commenters name it as an alternative to slow GitHub Actions, though one notes it had several outages in a week.
22HN people shared it
8linked it in comments
32stories submitted
969story points
3 months agolast shared
2024people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Speed up your GitHub Actions by runnig them on high-performance gaming CPUs6 people · 2 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 2The GitHub Actions control plane is no longer free3 people · 216 points · first shared 2025 · 3 comments on HN
- 3We built a logging platform for GitHub Actions with ClickHouse3 people · 23 points · first shared 2025 · 2 comments on HN
- 4How the economics of multitenancy work2 people · 191 points · first shared 2025 · 46 comments on HN
- 5What it was like going through YC W242 people · 18 points · first shared 2024 · 4 comments on HN
- 6Stacked Diffs Can Be Expensive: Why You Should Do It More2 people · 13 points · first shared 2024 · 3 comments on HN
- 7What is your CI job talking to?2 people · 7 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 8Cache is King: A guide for Docker layer caching in GitHub Actions1 people · 210 points · first shared 2024 · 109 comments on HN
- 9Reverse engineering GitHub Actions cache to make it fast1 people · 154 points · first shared 2025 · 37 comments on HN
- 10Faster Docker builds using a remote BuildKit instance1 people · 75 points · first shared 2024 · 47 comments on HN
- 11You have 5 days before the new DockerHub limits hit you1 people · 9 points · first shared 2025 · 1 comments on HN
- 12How we SSH into GitHub Actions1 people · 9 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 13The Exodus from GitHub Actions to Buildkite1 people · 8 points · first shared 2024 · 1 comments on HN
- 14How to optimize your Dockerfile for faster Docker builds1 people · 6 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 15Deployments still suck, but maybe they don't have to1 people · 5 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
jalaziz · 2025-03-20
GitHub Actions started off great as they were quickly iterating, but it very much seems that GitHub has taken its eye of the ball and the improvements have all but halted.
It's really upsetting how little attention Actions is getting these days (<https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/categories/actions?discu… tells the story -- the most popular issues have gone completely unanswered).
Sad to see Earthly halting development and Dagger jumping on the AI train :(. Hopefully we'll get a proper alternative.
On a related note, if you're considering https://www.blacksmith.sh/, you really should consider https://depot.dev/. We evaluated both but went with Depot because the team is insanely smart and they've solved some pretty neat challenges. One of the cooler features is that their caching works with the default actions/cache action. There's absolutely no need to switch out popular third party actions in favor of patched ones.
ttouch · 2026-05-26
there are a couple and have very good reputation - though I've never used them
https://www.blacksmith.sh/ and https://runs-on.com/
They also say that they're much cheaper than github
JustSkyfall · 2026-04-29
re: #1, Blacksmith (https://blacksmith.sh) exists and it works pretty well!
tempay · 2026-03-08
This is basically the premise of https://www.blacksmith.sh/ as far as I know, though without the need to host the hardware yourself and the potential complexity they comes with that.
latchkey · 2026-08-17
blacksmith.sh just raised tens of millions on the core premise that self-hosting CI/CD is hard [0].
they've had multiple outages in the last week, so i guess they are proving themselves correct.
in practice, giving ssh/sudo to AI (codex) and telling it to setup ephemeral runners on your own host VM, takes about 30 minutes and works extremely well. it bangs out all the shell scripts. moved my own business over to it. zero problems.
[0] https://www.blacksmith.sh/blog/blacksmith-seed-announcement
defraudbah · 2025-12-16
this article explains release better than github itself https://www.blacksmith.sh/blog/actions-pricing
tsaifu · 2025-12-16
Related: Github Actions control plane is no longer free https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46291500 https://www.blacksmith.sh/blog/actions-pricing
Eikon · 2025-03-26
> You have 5 days before the new DockerHub limits f*ck you over.
How classy from a somewhat DockerHub competitor: https://www.blacksmith.sh/pricing
I guess only they are allowed to make money, not Docker.