Cutter 16
$ 62 /month
- vCPU
- 6 × dedicated
- RAM
- 16 GB
- Storage
- 320 GB NVMe SSD
- Transfer
- 15 TB
- IPv4 / IPv6
- 1 / /64 routed
Solution
VPS for self-hosted CI/CD runners (GitHub Actions, GitLab, Woodpecker)
Cutter 16 · $62/moClipper 16 · $92/mo
Short answer
Self-hosted runners pay for themselves quickly: a Cutter 16 at $62 a month replaces several thousand hosted CI minutes and builds faster because the cache is local. Four to six dedicated cores and 16 GB handle most build matrices. Use NVMe — dependency installation and container layer extraction are almost entirely IO-bound.
What you need
| Resource | What you actually need |
|---|---|
| CPU | 4–8 dedicated cores; builds parallelise well |
| RAM | 16 GB for a typical matrix, 32 GB for large monorepos |
| Disk | 320 GB NVMe — caches, images and artefacts accumulate |
| Kernel | Nested virtualisation for container and VM-based jobs |
Recommended plans
Clipper 16
$ 92 /month
- vCPU
- 8 × dedicated
- RAM
- 16 GB
- Storage
- 400 GB NVMe Gen4 SSD
- Transfer
- 30 TB
- IPv4 / IPv6
- 1 / /64 routed
Clipper 32
$ 174 /month
- vCPU
- 12 × dedicated
- RAM
- 32 GB
- Storage
- 800 GB NVMe Gen4 SSD
- Transfer
- 40 TB
- IPv4 / IPv6
- 1 / /64 routed
Recommended locations
Location is usually the decision that matters most for this workload — either because latency dominates, or because jurisdiction does.
Why OnionVPS for this
- Nested virtualisation means Docker-based and VM-based jobs both work.
- Local dependency caches on NVMe cut typical build times substantially versus a cold hosted runner.
- Flat monthly pricing instead of per-minute billing that punishes a busy week.
- No account verification, so a runner can be provisioned by a script at three in the morning.
How to set it up
-
Deploy a Cutter 16 with Ubuntu 24.04
Six cores and 16 GB covers most projects.
-
Install the runner agent
GitHub Actions runner, gitlab-runner, or Woodpecker depending on your forge.
-
Run jobs in ephemeral containers
A fresh container per job stops one build poisoning the next.
-
Persist the package caches outside the container
Mount host directories for npm, cargo, pip and Docker layers.
-
Register the runner and tag it
Tags let you route heavy jobs here and leave light ones on hosted runners.
Frequently asked questions
Is a self-hosted CI runner cheaper than hosted minutes?
Almost always past a few thousand minutes a month. A $62 instance runs continuously; hosted CI bills by the minute and re-downloads dependencies on every cold start.
Can I run Docker builds on a self-hosted runner?
Yes. Nested virtualisation and full root mean buildx, Docker-in-Docker and rootless builds all work.
Are self-hosted runners safe for public repositories?
Only with ephemeral, isolated runners. A public repository can execute arbitrary code from a pull request, so never give such a runner access to secrets or your internal network.