How to Migrate from GitHub-hosted Runners and Save on Cloud Costs in 3 Minutes

If you're using GitHub-hosted runners for your CI/CD workflows, you've likely experienced one (or all) of these frustrations:

• Slow job startup times
• Limited compute power
• Lack of GPU support
• High per-minute billing
• Inability to control where and how your jobs run

For teams scaling fast or running heavy workloads, these issues compound quickly—both in time and money.

At Tenki, we believe developer velocity shouldn't be held back by infrastructure constraints or opaque pricing models. In this guide, we’ll show you how to migrate from GitHub-hosted runners to Tenki-managed runners in under 3 minutes. It's easy, fast, and can save you up to 70% on CI/CD costs.

Why Teams Are Leaving GitHub-hosted Runners

GitHub-hosted runners are convenient for beginners, but they come with trade-offs:

• Fixed compute sizes (2-core, 7GB RAM)
• No support for GPU, ARM, or high-memory builds
• Longer startup times (60s+ in some regions)
• Usage charges that increase rapidly with scale
• Limited control over regions, availability, or performance

Self-hosting runners solves these problems—but at the cost of complexity.

That’s where Tenki comes in.

Meet Tenki: Self-Hosted GitHub Runners Without the DevOps Headaches

Tenki makes it easy to run GitHub Actions runners on your own cloud infrastructure—with zero ops work.

With Tenki, you get:

✅ Ephemeral runners that auto-clean after every job

✅ Autoscale offering remove hassle from updating needed ressources

✅ Large offering flexible CPU/RAM configurations to meet a wide range of needs

✅ GitHub-native integration—no vendor lock-in

You don’t need to manage images, scaling logic, or VMs. Tenki does it all.

🚀 Migrate in 3 Minutes (No Joke)

You can be up and running with Tenki runners in just three steps:

Step 1: Install the Tenki GitHub App

• Authorize Tenki to access your GitHub org or selected repos.
• This handles token rotation, job routing, and label matching securely.

Step 2: Connect your GitHub Organization

• From the Tenki dashboard, link your GitHub Organization.
• Define the level of access (All Repositories/Selected Repositories.

Step 3: Connect your GitHub Repositories

• Choose which Repositories you want to connect to your Tenki project.
  - Note: We also support Public Repositories.

Step 4: Run Migration Wizard

With our native migration tool, you can select a repository, automatically detect workflow .yaml files, pull their current values, and seamlessly update them to Tenki variables.

Automatically creating the steps to:
Change this:

runs-on: ubuntu-latest

To this:

runs-on: tenki-standard-autoscale

That’s it. You’re now running on custom, autoscaled, cost-efficient infrastructure.

Real-World Cost Reduction Examples

Teams migrating to Tenki report:

• Up to 90% savings on CI/CD compute
• Faster job start times, 30% more efficient
• Simpler workflows with no need to tune runs-on per job, once set to tenki-standard-autoscale

Example:

A machine learning team running nightly model training switched to Tenki’s GPU runners with spot instances and saved $3,000+ per month.

Another example:

A dev tools company reduced their GitHub Actions bill by 70% after moving 20 repos to Tenki—without rewriting any workflows.

Why Choose Tenki

When you migrate to Tenki, you get the best of both worlds—enterprise-grade performance without the DevOps overhead:

• Built for performance-hungry teams
• Handles all the ops so you don’t have to
• Keeps your jobs isolated, fast, and reproducible
• Works with your existing GitHub Actions setup

Whether you're a solo dev running 1,500 minutes a month or a team running 100,000+, Tenki helps you save money and scale without headaches.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

• Do I need to rewrite my workflows?
  No. Just update the runs-on and labels fields. Everything else works the same.
• Can I start with just one repo?
  Yes. You can start small and scale as needed. No commitment.
• Is Tenki more secure than self-hosting?
  Yes. Every job runs in a hardened, isolated, and ephemeral environment.
• How is pricing calculated?
  You only pay for active job minutes. Idle time costs $0. Plus, you get $10 free credit monthly. View pricing. Earn more free credits.

Final Thoughts: Save Money, Run Faster

Migrating from GitHub-hosted runners doesn’t have to be painful. With Tenki, it takes just 3 minutes to:

• Run jobs on your own cloud (with full visibility)
• Cut CI/CD costs significantly
• Improve job spin-up and execution speed

Whether you need high-performance runners, high-load jobs support, or just want to stop overpaying GitHub for compute, Tenki is the easiest way to scale CI/CD without friction.

Glossary

GitHub Actions: GitHub’s native CI/CD automation tool.

Runner: A machine (VM or container) that executes jobs in your workflow.

Self-hosted Runner: A runner that lives outside GitHub’s infrastructure, typically in your own cloud or hardware.

Ephemeral Runner: A temporary runner that is created for a single job and destroyed afterward.

Autoscaling: Automatically spinning up or shutting down runners based on job demand.

Spot Instances: Discounted cloud compute that can be reclaimed, great for non-critical jobs.

Custom Labels: Tags used in GitHub workflows to match specific runner groups.