CircleCI vs WarpBuild

CircleCI is a full CI and CD platform: you write its config file, and its pipelines run each job on a fresh container or VM. WarpBuild keeps you on GitHub Actions and only swaps the machine: change the runs-on label and each job gets its own VM, destroyed when the job ends.

The companies and products

CircleCI

CircleCI is a CI and CD platform that runs your pipeline jobs on machines it hosts, or on runners you host.

You describe jobs in a config file, and each job runs on a fresh Docker container or a machine VM (Linux, Arm, Windows, macOS on Apple M4 Pro, or GPU on Scale), then the machine is discarded. Files move between jobs only through caches, workspaces and artifacts. It is a CI service, not an agent sandbox, so this page compares where they overlap: a machine where a job or an agent does its work. CircleCI also has Chunk, a toolkit that starts its own agent tasks in CircleCI Cloud from a prompt.

Product: CI and CD platform with cloud executors, self-hosted runners and a self-hosted Server edition
Isolation: Docker executor jobs run in containers; machine, Windows and macOS jobs each run in a fresh VM
Job time limit: 1 hour on Free, 3 hours on Performance, 5 hours on Scale
Where it runs: AWS us-east-1 and us-east-2, and GCP us-east1 and us-central1
Self-hosting: CircleCI Server installs on your own Kubernetes cluster on GCP or AWS
Compliance: Trust center lists a SOC 2 Type 2 report and FedRAMP LI-SaaS

WarpBuild

WarpBuild sells hosted GitHub Actions runners: you change the runs-on label and your CI jobs run on its machines.

WarpBuild is a CI service, not an agent sandbox. Each GitHub Actions job runs in its own VM on Linux (x86-64 or arm64), Windows or macOS on Apple M4 Pro, and the VM and its disk are destroyed after the build. It also sells remote Docker builders, can run the same runners inside your own AWS, GCP or Azure account, and can host Claude Managed Agents sessions on its stock runners.

Kind of product: GitHub Actions runners and remote Docker builders, billed per minute
Isolation: Each runner runs in its own virtual machine, created on demand and destroyed after each build
Platforms: Ubuntu on x86-64 and arm64, Windows Server 2022 and 2025, macOS 14, 15 and 26 on Apple M4 Pro
Where it runs: WarpBuild's cloud, or BYOC in your own AWS, GCP or Azure account
Concurrency: Unlimited on Linux and Windows; high macOS concurrency through support
SSO: SAML SSO with Okta, Azure AD or Google Workspace, $250 a month
Compliance: Says it is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant

Which use cases each one fits

For each use case, Battleships prices every sandbox provider on the same workload and sorts them from the cheapest monthly bill up. “136th cheapest of 377” means 135 of the other 376 providers run that workload, with every feature it needs, for less. “With limits” means the provider runs it but misses something, so it is listed after every full match. Open a use case for its whole ranking and what each provider misses.

Use case and its workload	CircleCI: price rank	WarpBuild: price rank	boat: price rank
Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month A coding agent that builds a whole app needs one machine for hours with its files in place; a CircleCI job stops after 3 hours on Performance, and both wipe the machine when the job ends.	333rd of 367, with limits $8,692 a month	269th of 367, with limits $4,343 a month	3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month
Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB An assistant that lives on its machine all month fits neither: CircleCI jobs stop after 5 hours even on Scale and WarpBuild jobs after GitHub's 5 day cap, with no disk kept on either.	340th of 366, with limits $13,137 a month	285th of 366, with limits $5,650 a month	5th cheapest of 366 $657 a month
Code interpreter bursts 100 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 200,000 sessions of 1 min a month	285th of 345, with limits $572 a month	287th of 345, with limits $600 a month	186th of 345, with limits $2,000 a month
Sandboxes for your users 300 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 23 min a month Your users' sandboxes need a URL to reach their apps; CircleCI jobs expose no ports and WarpBuild runners block all inbound traffic, while boat gives HTTPS on up to 50 ports.	316th of 361, with limits $3,702 a month	278th of 361, with limits $1,890 a month	Cheapest of 361 $209 a month
RL rollouts 1,000 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 1,000,000 sessions of 3 min a month	310th of 360, with limits $17,882 a month	281st of 360, with limits $9,000 a month	34th of 360, with limits $2,000 a month
Agent evals 250 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 15,000 sessions of 20 min a month	318th of 364, with limits $2,877 a month	294th of 364, with limits $1,440 a month	10th cheapest of 364 $200 a month
CI runners 40 at once · 8 vCPU / 16 GB · 6,000 sessions of 12 min a month Both are built for CI: CircleCI ranks 136th as a full pipeline service and WarpBuild ranks 94th as drop-in GitHub Actions runners, while boat ranks 4th if you run the runner on a sandbox yourself.	136th cheapest of 377 $4,302 a month	94th cheapest of 377 $864 a month	4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month
24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB A dev box has to stay up and keep what you installed; CircleCI restores only cached paths and WarpBuild only cache or disk snapshots that expire after 15 days.	197th of 368, with limits $508 a month	182nd of 368, with limits $226 a month	18th cheapest of 368 $26 a month
Computer-use agents 50 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 20,000 sessions of 15 min a month Neither has a desktop or a computer-use API, since both run headless CI jobs; boat streams a 60fps Linux desktop with Chromium.	320th of 369, with limits $2,589 a month	264th of 369, with limits $1,320 a month	6th cheapest of 369 $200 a month
Browser-use agents 50 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 10 min a month	116th of 367, with limits $1,293 a month	280th of 367, with limits $720 a month	7th cheapest of 367 $200 a month
Scraping & bots (startup scale) 50 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 100,000 sessions of 3 min a month	70th cheapest of 346 $860 a month	306th of 346, with limits $878 a month	6th cheapest of 346 $90 a month
Mass scraping & bots (undetectable) 1,000 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 3,000,000 sessions of 2 min a month	274th of 338, with limits $17,532 a month	275th of 338, with limits $17,550 a month	71st of 338, with limits $1,800 a month
Parallel red teaming 200 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 5,000 sessions of 30 min a month	80th of 360, with limits $852 a month	264th of 360, with limits $435 a month	2nd cheapest of 360 $200 a month
GPU eval jobs 10 at once · 8 vCPU / 32 GB · 500 sessions of 30 min a month Neither CI service is priced here: CircleCI's GPU classes sit on its custom-priced Scale plan, WarpBuild has no GPUs, and boat has none either.	Can't run it	Can't run it	Can't run it
macOS agents 5 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 1,000 sessions of 20 min a month Both run macOS on Apple M4 Pro, CircleCI even on its Free plan one job at a time and WarpBuild at $0.08 a minute; boat runs Linux only.	34th of 36, with limits $2,262 a month	29th of 36, with limits $1,520 a month	Can't run it

Key features

Feature	CircleCI	WarpBuild	boat
Kind of product	A CI and CD platform: pipelines from its own config file start jobs on its machines	Hosted GitHub Actions runners: change runs-on and GitHub sends the job to WarpBuild	Agent sandboxes you create and drive by API, CLI or SDK
Isolation	Containers on the Docker executor; a fresh VM per job on machine, Windows and macOS executors	Every job gets its own VM, created on demand and destroyed after the build	Full VM with its own kernel on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X (Zen 5) hosts
How long a machine runs	1 hour per job on Free, 3 on Performance, 5 on Scale	Until the job ends; GitHub stops a self-hosted runner job after 5 days	No session cap on paid plans; you set the time to live
Files after a run	The machine is discarded; caches, workspaces and artifacts copy chosen paths out	The disk is destroyed; cache and disk snapshots (deleted after 15 days) carry state over	The whole disk is saved every minute and on stop; a stopped sandbox costs nothing
Fork	No fork of a job	No fork; a later runner can boot from a saved disk snapshot in 45 to 60 seconds	Fork a running sandbox with its disk
Docker and nested virtualization	Docker and sudo on machine executors; nested virtualization documented on the Android machine image	Docker on runners; /dev/kvm only on Linux x86-64, turned on with a label	Docker, root, systemd and /dev/kvm on every machine
Desktop and computer use	Headless jobs; no desktop or computer-use API	None; runners have no desktop stream	60fps Linux desktop with Chromium, computer use and browser control, embeddable stream
Reaching the machine	No exposed ports; rerun a job with SSH, open for 10 minutes after it ends	All inbound traffic blocked; SSH into failed jobs for debugging	HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected; raw TCP; SSH
Coding agents	Chunk starts CircleCI's own agent tasks from a prompt; other agents are job steps you install	Runs Claude Managed Agents sessions on stock runners, driven through Anthropic's API	Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more preinstalled, with a prompt, steer and events API
Keeping keys out of the machine	Contexts inject secrets as environment variables; OIDC tokens for cloud logins	GitHub secrets are passed into the runner environment	Credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API you register; real keys never enter the sandbox
Operating systems and chips	Linux on x86 and Arm, Windows, macOS on Apple M4 Pro with Xcode	Linux x86-64 and arm64, Windows Server 2022 and 2025, macOS on Apple M4 Pro	Linux on x86-64 only
GPUs	Nvidia T4, V100 and other GPU classes on the Scale plan	None	None
Running it in your own infrastructure	Self-hosted runners, or the whole platform as CircleCI Server on your own Kubernetes	BYOC runners in your own AWS, GCP or Azure account, with your network rules and static egress IPs	Hosted only, on boat's own machines in the EU
Regions	US only: AWS us-east-1 and us-east-2, GCP us-east1 and us-central1	WarpBuild's cloud, a hosted EU region on the enterprise tier, or your own cloud account	EU only (Germany, Finland, France), with EU data residency and zero data retention

Every feature Battleships tracks (43)

Feature	CircleCI	WarpBuild	boat
Full VM (own kernel)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Docker inside	Yes	Yes	Yes
Nested virtualization	Yes	Yes	Yes
Root	Not published	Yes	Yes
Systemd	No	Not published	Yes
Desktop GUI	No	No	Yes
Browser	Yes	No	Yes
Computer-use API	No	No	Yes
SSH	Yes	Yes	Yes
Persistent disk	No	No	Yes
Pause/resume	No	No	Yes
Automatic snapshots	No	No	Yes
Fork/clone	No	No	Yes
Live fork (no pause)	No	No	Yes
Memory fork	No	No	No
Custom image (Docker or snapshot)	Yes	Yes	Yes
≥24 h sessions	No	Yes	Yes
Idle auto-stop	Yes	Yes	No
Wake on request	No	Yes	No
HTTPS preview URLs	No	No	Yes
Raw TCP inbound	No	No	Yes
Public IPv4	No	No	No
Egress allowlist	No	Yes	No
Secret proxy	No	No	Yes
Secret proxy for any API	No	No	Yes
Preinstalled agents	No	Yes	Yes
Agent harness API	Yes	No	Yes
MCP server	Yes	Yes	No
GPU	Yes	No	No
Windows	Yes	Yes	No
Arm64	Yes	Yes	No
Self-hosting	Yes	No	No
BYOC	No	Yes	No
Open source	No	No	No
Scoped API keys	Not published	Yes	Yes
Spend limits	Not published	Not published	Yes
Usage per sandbox (API)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Audit logs	Yes	Not published	No
SSO	Yes	Yes	No
SOC 2	Yes	Yes	No
HIPAA	No	No	No
EU data residency	No	Yes	Yes
Zero data retention	Not published	Not published	Yes

Performance

CircleCINot measured

WarpBuildNot measured

boat26.69 runs/s

We have no comparable measurement for CircleCI or WarpBuild: neither was part of the StarSling hpc-sandbox-benchmarks run. On that Node.js build-and-test benchmark at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, boat did 26.69 runs per second on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X (Zen 5) hosts. WarpBuild's own speed claims compare its runners with GitHub's, not with CircleCI or boat.

Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. CircleCI and WarpBuild have no published run in this suite yet, so there is no like-for-like number to compare.

Pricing in five scenarios

Each bill is priced from the providers' public price lists by the open Battleships engine, with the cheapest plan that runs the scenario.

Scenario	CircleCI, a month	WarpBuild, a month	boat, a month
One coding agent, workdays 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, 8 hours a day, 22 days a month, files kept between days	$96 · Performance · with limits	$57 · Pay as you go · with limits	$20 · $20/mo
One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month	$508 · Performance · with limits	$237 · Pay as you go · with limits	$26 · $20/mo
50 agents in parallel 50 machines of 4 vCPU / 8 GB at once, 8-hour sessions, 1,100 sessions a month, Docker inside	$5,714 · Performance · with limits	$2,851 · Pay as you go · with limits	$317 · $20/mo × 3 seats
Sandboxes for your users 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 30,000 sessions of 10 minutes a month, up to 300 at once	$1,617 · Performance · with limits	$810 · Pay as you go · with limits	$200 · $100/mo × 2 seats
1,000 short jobs at once 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 1,000 at once, 3 minutes each, 200,000 jobs a month	$3,562 · Performance · with limits	$1,800 · Pay as you go · with limits	$2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits

CircleCI: CircleCI bills credits per minute for the machine class a job uses: Free includes 30,000 credits, Performance starts at $15 a month with 30,000 credits and more at $15 per 25,000, and Scale is custom and annual. Active users beyond 5 also cost credits.

WarpBuild: WarpBuild has no plan fee and bills runners per minute while a job runs, for example $0.006 a minute for 4 vCPU and 16 GB on Linux. Cache, snapshot storage and restores are extra, and BYOC runners cost $0.002 a minute on top of your cloud bill.

WarpBuild: You pick a monthly plan from $20, and all of it becomes usage credit spent per second on running sandboxes. A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.

Limits in those scenarios

Neither CI service fits the agent scenarios as sold, because both keep no disk after a job. CircleCI also stops a job after 3 hours on Performance and runs at most 80 jobs at once, so 300 user sandboxes and 1,000 short jobs wait in the queue. WarpBuild jobs can run up to GitHub's 5 day cap and it advertises unlimited Linux concurrency, but the 300 and 1,000 machine counts are unconfirmed and egress pricing is not published. On boat, the 1,000-job burst is limited by starts per minute and per day, so it is queued even on the $2,000 plan.

Scenario	CircleCI	WarpBuild	boat
One coding agent, workdays	Performance: sessions capped at 3 h missing persistent disk different kind of product: CI runner	missing persistent disk different kind of product: CI runner egress price not published	None that bite
One agent that never stops	Performance: sessions capped at 3 h missing persistent disk different kind of product: CI runner	missing persistent disk different kind of product: CI runner sessions end after 120 h: needs restarts to run 24/7 egress price not published	None that bite
50 agents in parallel	Performance: sessions capped at 3 h missing persistent disk different kind of product: CI runner	missing persistent disk different kind of product: CI runner egress price not published how many machines can run at once: limit not published, probably fine at 50 (the typical published limit is 50)	None that bite
Sandboxes for your users	Performance: max 80 concurrent different kind of product: CI runner	different kind of product: CI runner not confirmed: how many machines can run at once (you need 300; the typical published limit is 50) egress price not published	None that bite
1,000 short jobs at once	Performance: max 80 concurrent different kind of product: CI runner	different kind of product: CI runner not confirmed: how many machines can run at once (you need 1,000; the typical published limit is 50) egress price not published	max 2,400 starts/day (needs ~6,667) max 600 starts/hour (needs ~1,000) bursts above 90 starts/min are queued (a burst of 333 takes ~4 min to start)

Which one should you use?

Use CircleCI when

you want a complete CI platform with its own pipelines, GPUs for tests, macOS, Windows or Arm machines, or the whole service hosted on your own Kubernetes.

A whole CI platform. Useful if you want one service for CI: pipelines, caches, workspaces, test splitting and orbs, not tied to GitHub Actions.
GPUs for tests. Useful if your tests need a GPU: the Scale plan adds Nvidia classes such as T4 and V100.
The whole service on your own cluster. Useful if CI must run entirely in-house: CircleCI Server installs the full platform on your own Kubernetes on AWS or GCP.

Use WarpBuild when

you already run GitHub Actions and want faster runners on Linux, Windows or macOS, paid by the minute, in its cloud or your own.

Drop-in GitHub Actions. Useful if you already use GitHub Actions: change one runs-on label and keep every workflow as it is.
Pay only for job minutes. Useful if usage swings: no plan fee, billed per minute while a job runs, with unlimited concurrency on Linux and Windows.
Runners in your own cloud. Useful if CI must sit in your AWS, GCP or Azure account, behind your security groups and fixed egress IPs.

Where boat fits

CircleCI and WarpBuild are both CI services, and boat is not one: it has no pipeline service and no managed runners. If what you are really running is agents, though, both give each one a machine that lives for one job and is then thrown away. boat gives the agent a full Linux VM that keeps its disk, can be reached from outside, and ships coding agents you drive from outside.

A machine that keeps its work

A CircleCI job stops after 3 hours on Performance and WarpBuild's disk is destroyed when the job ends. The workarounds are caches and workspaces, or WarpBuild disk snapshots billed per hour that expire after 15 days. boat saves the whole disk every minute.

Apps and desktops you can open

CircleCI exposes no ports and WarpBuild blocks all inbound traffic, so nobody can open the app an agent built. The only way in is a debug SSH session. boat gives HTTPS on up to 50 ports, raw TCP and a 60fps desktop.

Coding agents you drive from outside

On CircleCI you get Chunk's own tasks, on WarpBuild only Claude Managed Agents, and on both your secrets sit in the job's environment. boat preinstalls Claude Code, Codex and more, and its credentials proxy keeps real keys out.

Use boat when what you are really running is agents on Linux for hours or days: one full VM that keeps its disk, Docker and /dev/kvm, a 60fps desktop, URLs you can reach, and coding agents you drive from outside. Compare it one to one: boat vs CircleCI and boat vs WarpBuild.

Questions people ask

Is CircleCI cheaper than WarpBuild?

In every scenario we priced, WarpBuild comes out lower: one coding agent on workdays is $57 a month on WarpBuild against $96 on CircleCI, and 50 agents in parallel $2,851 against $5,714. boat comes to $20 and $317 for the same work. None of these fit either CI service as sold, since their machines live for one job.

Which is faster, CircleCI or WarpBuild?

We have no comparable CPU measurement for either one. Neither was part of the StarSling benchmark, where boat did 26.69 runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB.

Can CircleCI and WarpBuild run Docker?

Yes. CircleCI has a Docker executor and Docker with sudo on its machine executors, and WarpBuild runners have Docker plus remote Docker builders. For nested virtualization, CircleCI documents it on its Android machine image and WarpBuild turns on /dev/kvm with a label on Linux x86-64. boat has Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm on every machine.

How long can a job run on CircleCI and WarpBuild?

CircleCI stops a job after 1 hour on Free, 3 on Performance and 5 on Scale. WarpBuild registers as a self-hosted GitHub runner, so its jobs run under GitHub's 5 day cap. boat has no session cap on paid plans.

Do both run macOS and Windows?

Yes. Both run macOS on Apple M4 Pro, Windows, and Linux on Arm as well as x86. boat runs Linux on x86-64 only.

Can I run AI coding agents on CircleCI or WarpBuild?

Yes, within a job: CircleCI's Chunk starts its own agent tasks, and WarpBuild can host Claude Managed Agents sessions on stock runners. Either way the machine is torn down when the session ends. On boat, Claude Code and Codex are preinstalled on a VM that keeps its disk.

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