BuildJet alternative: move your GitHub Actions runners to Sengi

What is the best BuildJet alternative for GitHub Actions?

Sengi. BuildJet stopped running jobs on March 31, 2026, and Sengi is the drop-in for its x64 runners: change runs-on from buildjet-2vcpu-ubuntu-2204 to sengi-standard-2-ubuntu-2404 and merge. Your jobs run on AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D bare metal at $0.003 a minute, 25% under BuildJet's old price, with builds up to 1.9× faster than GitHub's runner for up to 74% less per build, and the cache included.

Last checked October 9, 2026, against BuildJet's shutdown notice, runner docs and pricing page. Prices in USD.

What happened to BuildJet?

BuildJet announced on February 6, 2026 that BuildJet for GitHub Actions was shutting down. New signups closed that day, concurrency subscriptions became free, and pay-as-you-go billing ran until March 31, 2026, when its runners stopped. BuildJet's reason: the gap it set out to fill had largely closed. Every workflow that still names a buildjet-* label now waits for a runner that never comes.

The fix is one line per job. Sengi keeps your workflows in GitHub Actions and replaces the machine behind runs-on, the same model BuildJet ran.

Which Sengi label replaces each BuildJet label?

The -2004 variants of the x64 labels map the same way. BuildJet labels come from BuildJet's runner hardware docs, checked October 9, 2026.

What do I change in my workflows?

1. The runner label. Swap each buildjet-* value in runs-on for its Sengi label from the table above.
2. The cache action. Replace buildjet/cache@v4 with actions/cache@v4, the swap BuildJet's own notice gives. The inputs are the same, and on Sengi the cache is served from Sengi's own cache at no added charge.
3. Docker builds. Nothing to change. docker/build-push-action with cache-from: type=gha keeps its layers between runs through Sengi's Docker layer caching, included free.

Before and after, for a typical job:

jobs:
  test:
-   runs-on: buildjet-4vcpu-ubuntu-2204
+   runs-on: sengi-standard-4-ubuntu-2404
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
-     - uses: buildjet/cache@v4
+     - uses: actions/cache@v4
        with:
          path: ~/.npm
          key: npm-${{ hashFiles('package-lock.json') }}

Sengi runs Ubuntu 24.04, so a job moving from BuildJet's 22.04 image picks up 24.04's package versions. Or skip the editing: give your coding agent the Sengi prompt and it finds every buildjet-* label, swaps it and opens the pull request. Switching back is one revert.

How does Sengi's price compare with BuildJet's?

Sengi is 25% under BuildJet's old price at every size. A team running 10,000 minutes a month on 4 vCPU paid BuildJet $80. The same minutes cost $60 on Sengi and $120 on GitHub's larger runner. BuildJet's rates are its AMD64 prices as still shown on its pricing page; GitHub's are from its Actions runner pricing reference; all checked October 9, 2026. See every provider side by side in the GitHub Actions runner price comparison.

Why do BuildJet teams pick Sengi?

• 25% less than BuildJet, up to 74% less per build than GitHub. $0.003, $0.006 and $0.012 a minute for 2, 4 and 8 vCPU. No subscription, no minimum.
• Up to 1.9× faster builds than GitHub's runner. Up to 2.75× the multi-core and 1.6× the single-core CPU of GitHub's 2 vCPU runner, on AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D bare metal boosting past 5 GHz.
• Cache included. actions/cache, the setup actions' caches and Docker layer caching, with no per-GB fee.
• A fresh VM for every job, with 2 vCPU runners pre-booted and ready in 2 seconds.
• Personal repositories at every size, as well as organizations.
• 3,000 free minutes a month, no card. Move one workflow today and watch it run.

Compare with other BuildJet alternatives on the runner price table, or head to head in Sengi vs Blacksmith. See Sengi runner pricing and how switching works.

Frequently asked questions

Is BuildJet shut down?

Yes. BuildJet announced on February 6, 2026 that BuildJet for GitHub Actions was shutting down, closed new signups that day, and stopped running jobs on March 31, 2026. A workflow that still names a buildjet runner label no longer runs.

What is the best BuildJet alternative?

Sengi is the drop-in for BuildJet's x64 runners. Change runs-on from buildjet-2vcpu-ubuntu-2204 to sengi-standard-2-ubuntu-2404, or the 4 or 8 vCPU label, and the job runs on AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D bare metal at $0.003 a minute: 25% under BuildJet's old $0.004, with builds up to 1.9× faster than GitHub's runner for up to 74% less per build.

What replaces buildjet-4vcpu-ubuntu-2204?

sengi-standard-4-ubuntu-2404: 4 vCPU and 16 GB, the same size, at $0.006 a minute against BuildJet's $0.008. buildjet-2vcpu-ubuntu-2204 becomes sengi-standard-2-ubuntu-2404 and buildjet-8vcpu-ubuntu-2204 becomes sengi-standard-8-ubuntu-2404.

What do I do with buildjet/cache?

Replace buildjet/cache@v4 with actions/cache@v4, as BuildJet's own shutdown notice advises. The inputs are the same. On Sengi, actions/cache is served from Sengi's own cache at no added charge.

How much cheaper is Sengi than BuildJet was?

25% at every size. BuildJet charged $0.004, $0.008 and $0.016 a minute for 2, 4 and 8 vCPU. Sengi charges $0.003, $0.006 and $0.012, with no subscription and no minimum.

Does Sengi run BuildJet's ARM jobs?

Sengi runs Ubuntu 24.04 x64 at 2, 4 and 8 vCPU. Move the x64 jobs to Sengi and point the -arm jobs at GitHub's ubuntu-24.04-arm runner, the replacement BuildJet's shutdown notice names.

Why not just go back to GitHub's runners?

Price and speed. On the same 2 vCPU, Sengi is half GitHub's price per minute, $0.003 against $0.006, and runs builds up to 1.9× faster: together, up to 74% less per build. It has up to 2.75× the multi-core and 1.6× the single-core CPU of GitHub's runner. GitHub's 4 and 8 vCPU runners also need an organization on Team or Enterprise Cloud; Sengi runs every size on personal repositories too.