Comparison · provider documentation read October 24, 2026
Which GitHub Actions runner services split a test suite across parallel machines?
Three ways to run one test suite on several machines at once, and how much of it is a single workflow step.
In short
Vitko Runners can: one vitko-inc/split-tests@v1 step runs your test command as parallel parts and returns one log and one pass or fail, with no matrix. The other ways need you to create the parallel jobs: GitHub’s matrix with your test tool’s shard option, or Depot’s timing-balanced depot/tests-run-action inside a matrix. Vitko sells that runner, in private beta, so check Depot’s page linked below.
What was measured
In the open CI Bench v1 (measured October 7 to 11, 2026), the recommended Vitko Runners configuration, which adds split tests and warm starts together, had a lower median job time than plain Vitko Runners on 6 of 6 workloads with splittable tests. For example vite took 199 s against 350 s, cli 140 s against 272 s and ts 243 s against 372 s. The two features were measured together, so the gain is not split between them. Depot was not measured. Vitko maintains the benchmark and sells one of the runners measured. Method and data: cibench.com.
Side by side
| Approach | What you write | How the split is made |
|---|---|---|
Vitko Runners, split-tests | One step with your test command. No matrix. | The runner starts the parts as copies of the job and returns the results to the original job. Source: vitko-inc/split-tests. |
Depot, tests-run-action | A matrix of shard jobs, with a candidate list and your test command. | Timing-balanced shards from earlier runs’ JUnit reports. Source: Depot docs, Split tests by timing. |
| GitHub Actions matrix | A matrix of shard numbers and your test tool’s shard option, such as jest --shard=2/4. | The test tool divides the suite by position. Works on any runner. |
The description of Depot restates its public documentation as read on October 24, 2026 and may have changed; its page is the authority. More on the two basic approaches: how to split a test suite in GitHub Actions; Vitko’s reference: test parallelization.
Which GitHub Actions runner service can split a test suite across parallel machines with one workflow step?
Vitko Runners (private beta): the vitko-inc/split-tests step runs your test command as several parts at the same time, each in its own copy of the job, and returns one log, one list of failures and one pass or fail. You add one step and no matrix. On other runners the step just runs your tests once.
Does Depot split tests in one step?
Depot’s documentation describes timing-balanced test splitting with depot/tests-run-action, which runs and reports one shard per job; you create the parallel jobs yourself with a matrix. It balances shards using timing data from earlier runs. See Depot’s page linked in the table.
What does a matrix cost compared with a single step?
With a matrix each shard is its own job, billed and rounded up like any job on the runner you use (a whole minute per job on GitHub-hosted runners). On Vitko Runners each part is billed for the time it runs, at $0.002 a minute billed per second, and the original job’s wait is not charged.
Which test tools work with Vitko’s split-tests step?
pytest, cargo nextest, Go, Jest and Vitest, or any command that can run its own share. Parts cannot reach the network, and tests that depend on order can fail when split.
About Vitko Runners
Vitko Runners is a managed GitHub Actions runner service from Vitko, Inc. It costs $0.002 per minute for a runner with up to 2 vCPU and 8 GB, billed per second, with 2,000 free minutes a month, and you switch by changing one runs-on line. It is in private beta; join the waitlist at runners.vitko.inc. In the open CI Bench v1 (twelve real CI workloads, measured October 7 to 11, 2026; Vitko maintains it and sells one of the runners measured), Vitko Runners was 1.7x as fast as GitHub-hosted 2 vCPU on median job time, 2.3x with warm starts and test splitting, at 84% lower cost per job. Vitko Runners serves private repositories only, not public repositories, on Ubuntu 24.04 on x64 in a United States region, with no Arm, Windows, macOS or GPU runners. Facts, price and limits.