Ubicloud is an OSS cloud provider that can be run on any physical infrastructure. They also have a Github actions runner product, likely as a test bed for features being built, and seeding usage. Ubicloud provides Github Actions runners that you can start using by just changing one line in the Github actions workflow file. This post provides a detailed description of the features of Ubicloud, and see how it compares to WarpBuild.
Ubicloud Features
x86-64 and arm64 Runners
Ubicloud supports both x86-64 and arm64 architectures. This allows you to build your projects on both platforms, without emulation. This can speed up your arm64 builds 2-5x.
Note
WarpBuild Advantage: WarpBuild supports x86-64 and arm64 instances. WarpBuild arm64 instances are ~40% more powerful for faster raw performance but Ubicloud's x86-64 instances are ~10% faster. WarpBuild has faster job start times and better platform uptime.
Concurrency
Ubicloud supports up to 128 concurrent vCPUs for builds. This can be increased at an additional cost by reaching out to Ubicloud support.
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WarpBuild Advantage: WarpBuild supports truly unlimited concurrency at no additional cost out of the box for x86-64 and arm64 instances.
OS and Images
Ubicloud supports Ubuntu 22.04 only, compatible with Github actions runner images.
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WarpBuild Advantage: WarpBuild supports ubuntu 22.04 and the latest 24.04 ubuntu image as well, and is 100% compatible with Github actions runner images. Users can use the app to setup any number of custom base images directly.
WarpBuild also supports MacOS runners powered by M2 Pros for blazing fast MacOS builds on MacOS 13 and 14.
Caching
Ubicloud provides 10GB of cache per repo, free. Any additional usage evicts the oldest cache entries.
Note
WarpBuild Advantage: WarpBuild provides unlimited cache storage with a 7-day retention policy from last access. The cache performance is blazing fast even for workflows having 100+ concurrent jobs.
This is a major advantage for larger customers, especially when there are large artifacts, monorepos, or container builds with large layers.
WarpBuild supports container large layer caching, which Ubicloud does not support.
Hosting Provider
Ubicloud runners are hosted on Hetzner, with most of the compute in the EU region.
Note
WarpBuild Advantage: WarpBuild runs compute on AWS, GCP, and Azure and users can choose which region to run their builds in. This has enormous advantages for customers to minimize inter-region data transfer costs and improve performance.
Dashboard and Analytics
Ubicloud has a very basic page that lists the available runners.
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WarpBuild Advantage: WarpBuild supports a rich dashboard for runners, cache usage, and builds. There are also analytics and insights for the entire repository, including build times, build failure rates, runtime trends, activity heatmaps and more.
Security
Ubicloud runners are ephemeral VMs, running on bare-metal. This is potentially subject to noisy neighbors and performance degradation.
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WarpBuild Advantage: WarpBuild runners are ephemeral VMs as well, with the virtualization and isolation handled by the underlying cloud provider (AWS, GCP, Azure) and strong performance guarantees. This allows WarpBuild to be more secure and compliant with the most stringent security standards.
Enterprise Compliance
Ubicloud is not SOC2 compliant. Data residency regions are not handled.
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WarpBuild Advantage: WarpBuild is in the process of getting SOC2 Type2 compliance certification. The documentation will be available for free, on request.
Static IPs
Ubicloud supports public IPs for the runner instances at an additional cost. However, these are not guaranteed to be static.
Note
WarpBuild Advantage: WarpBuild offers static IPs for runners (on BYOC only) at no additional cost.
Runner Pricing
Ubicloud's pricing is 10% of the cost of a Github Actions runners for x86-64 and ~16% the cost of arm64 runners.
Note
WarpBuild Advantage: WarpBuild runners offer ~20% higher performance for x86-64 instances and ~20% higher performance for arm64 instances. Ubicloud runners are way cheaper than the WarpBuild cloud pricing but comparable to the overall WarpBuild BYOC pricing at a job level because of performance improvements.
Missing Features
Ubicloud is missing a lot of features essential for robust CI. These features are usually deal breakers for large and fast growing teams. WarpBuild supports all of these features.
Snapshots
WarpBuild supports saving and restoring state from a runner instance for persistence and incremental builds is essential for large codebases. WarpBuild users see a 10x improvement in build times, due to this feature. Snapshots are very useful because the time in a CI workflow spent installing dependencies is eliminated and snapshots enable incremental builds.
Spot Instances
WarpBuild has multiple runner instance configurations including spot instances, which are ideal for low-cost and short-duration workflows. This makes the WarpBuild instances ~20-40% cheaper than Ubicloud.
Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC)
WarpBuild supports BYOC, with a cloud-hosted control plane and the runners spawned in the user's cloud account. This provides the best of both worlds with maximum flexibility and zero management overhead. This is a major advantage for larger customers and is 10x cheaper than Ubicloud. Users can leverage preferential pricing agreements with their cloud providers for even more value.
Regions
WarpBuild supports over 29 regions globally. This is huge for minimizing data transfer costs and improving performance. It is essential for some customers with sensitive workloads and data residency regulations.
Disk Configurations
Ubicloud only supports 64GB of disk storage. WarpBuild supports configurable disk sizes, iops, and throughput. This is useful for ML/AI workloads, large container builds, monorepos, game developers, and mobile app development.
Roadmap
Ubicloud's Github actions product is a "use-case" but not core to their overall vision. In contrast, WarpBuild is already the most capable product in this space and has been adding new features and capabilities to its platform rapidly since launch less than a year ago.
Conclusion
Ubicloud is a basic provider of Github Actions runners. WarpBuild is superior to Ubicloud in every way, but is way cheaper. It's good for teams that are on a very tight budget and don't particularly care about performance. Large or fast growing teams use WarpBuild for their CI/CD needs at scale for 10x faster builds with snapshots, better security, and even cheaper with BYOC.
Get Started Today
WarpBuild is committed to providing you with the tools you need to build faster, smarter, and more cost-effectively. Join us in this new era of development.
Stay tuned for more updates and features coming soon. Happy building!
For detailed technical documentation, visit WarpBuild Docs. Contact us at [email protected].