GitHub Sparks Outrage with New 'Control Plane Fee' for Self-Hosted CI/CD Runners

GitHub has announced a controversial new policy imposing a “control plane fee” of 0.2 cents per minute on users employing self-hosted or third-party CI/CD runners, rather than its native GitHub Actions platform. This unprecedented charge has sparked widespread outrage across the developer community. Critics have quickly labeled the fee a “ransom,” “troll toll,” or “tax” for choosing alternative, often more performant, continuous integration and deployment solutions. This move comes amidst long-standing developer complaints regarding the performance, reliability, and observability of GitHub Actions, a service many describe as having been “neglected” and “falling apart” for years.

The new fee effectively adds to the cost of using external solutions, significantly diminishing the financial benefits of migrating from GitHub Actions’ often-criticized billing model, which rounds up usage to the nearest minute. Industry figures, including Mitchell Hashimoto (co-creator of Terraform) and Kyle Quest (CEO of Depot), have publicly condemned the decision, arguing it further damages GitHub’s developer reputation, which many perceive to be at an “all-time low.” While GitHub indicates the change will impact a “vast majority” of customers minimally and is intended to subsidize other services and open-source projects, the community largely interprets it as a misguided revenue grab. This policy fuels concerns about GitHub’s strategic mismanagement and leadership vacuum, intensifying fears of a “death spiral” for the widely used code hosting service and its impact on the broader developer ecosystem.