Comparison · Self-hosted vs Managed

Ironworks vs GitHub Actions

GitHub Actions is Free (2,000 min/mo) / $0.008/min. Ironworks is a self-hosted alternative at $1.99/mo. Here's when each makes sense.

Try Ironworks Free Ironworks overview

At a glance

	Ironworks	GitHub Actions
Hosting	Self-hosted, your infra	Managed SaaS (cloud only)
Data location	Your server, your disk	GitHub Actions's cloud
Free tier	5 pipelines	Free
Pro pricing	$1.99/mo	Free (2,000 min/mo) / $0.008/min
Dependencies	None (single binary + SQLite)	N/A (managed)
Setup time	~30 seconds	Account signup
Dashboard	Built-in at /ui	Cloud dashboard
License	BSL 1.1	Proprietary SaaS

When to use Ironworks

Pick Ironworks when you want simplicity and ownership.

Fully self-hosted — build logs stay on your server
$1.99/mo flat, no per-minute pricing
No vendor lock-in to GitHub
Runs on your hardware, your speed

Ironworks is a single Go binary with embedded SQLite. Install it with one command, and you are running in under a minute. Your data stays on your server.

curl -fsSL https://stockyard.dev/ironworks/install.sh | sh

Install Ironworks Ironworks docs

When GitHub Actions fits better

GitHub Actions makes sense when you need more.

Deeply integrated with GitHub repos
Massive marketplace of pre-built actions
Matrix builds and reusable workflows
Free tier is very generous

GitHub Actions is deeply integrated with GitHub and the marketplace has thousands of pre-built actions. If your code is on GitHub, Actions is the natural CI/CD choice. Ironworks is for teams that want CI/CD on their own infrastructure without per-minute pricing or GitHub dependency.

Deciding between the two

Teams evaluating GitHub Actions alongside Ironworks tend to split on two axes: feature depth and data residency. GitHub Actions wins on feature depth — it is a mature product with integrations, mobile apps, and a dedicated support team. Ironworks wins on residency — your ci/cd runner data lives on your server in a SQLite file you can inspect, back up, and migrate without asking anyone for permission.

How they differ under the hood

Architecturally, Ironworks and GitHub Actions could not be more different. GitHub Actions runs on distributed cloud infrastructure with load balancers, managed databases, CDNs, and redundancy across availability zones. Ironworks is a single process writing to a single file on a single disk. That sounds fragile until you realize that SQLite handles more concurrent readers than most web applications will ever need, and WAL mode means reads never block writes.

Moving to Ironworks

If you are currently using GitHub Actions and considering Ironworks, start by running both in parallel. Install Ironworks on a test server, point your workflow at it for a week, and compare the experience. Ironworks's data directory is isolated — running a trial costs nothing beyond the compute. If Ironworks does not fit, delete the binary and the data directory. There is nothing else to clean up.

FAQ

Is Ironworks a GitHub Actions alternative?

GitHub Actions is tightly coupled to GitHub. Ironworks is standalone self-hosted CI/CD. If your code is on GitHub, Actions is more integrated.

Does Ironworks support Docker builds?

Ironworks runs pipeline steps as shell commands. Docker builds work if Docker is installed on the host.

Ironworks overview

Get started

Self-hosted CI/CD runner in 30 seconds.

Single binary. Free to start. $1.99/mo for Pro.

Install Ironworks All 150 tools for $29/mo →