A self-hosted runner is a system that you deploy and manage to execute jobs from GitHub Actions on GitHub.

Self-hosted runners:

• Give you more control of hardware, operating system, and software tools than GitHub-hosted runners provide. Be aware that you are responsible for updating the operating system and all other software.
• Are free to use with GitHub Actions, but you are responsible for the cost of maintaining your runner machines.
• Let you create custom hardware configurations that meet your needs with processing power or memory to run larger jobs, install software available on your local network.
• Receive automatic updates for the self-hosted runner application only, though you may disable automatic updates of the runner.
• Can use cloud services or local machines that you already pay for.
• Don't need to have a clean instance for every job execution.
• Can be physical, virtual, in a container, on-premises, or in a cloud.

You can use self-hosted runners anywhere in the management hierarchy. Repository-level runners are dedicated to a single repository, while organization-level runners can process jobs for multiple repositories in an organization. Organization owners can choose which repositories are allowed to create repository-level self-hosted runners. See Disabling or limiting GitHub Actions for your organization. Finally, enterprise-level runners can be assigned to multiple organizations in an enterprise account.

Next steps

To set up a self-hosted runner in your workspace, see Adding self-hosted runners.

To find information about the requirements and supported software and hardware for self-hosted runners, see Self-hosted runners reference.