Wiring up CI for a small Tauri desktop app - GitHub-hosted runners, or a cheap self-hosted box?

xuwenxu

I'm a solo developer working on a small desktop app: NUC-X15, fan and thermal control for the Intel NUC X15 laptop. It's a Tauri app (Rust backend, TypeScript frontend), and it is a continuation of an existing GPL-3.0 project - NUCtool by cyear (https://github.com/cyear/NUCtool). I took that codebase, kept the GPL-3.0 license and the upstream git history, and I'm reworking the UI and the backend. My tree is here: https://github.com/lawyer60mosaics/NUC-X15

It's getting close to a first release, and "build it on my laptop and upload it by hand" is running out of road. I copied the usual Tauri CI template into .github/workflows (windows-latest + ubuntu-22.04 matrix) but it isn't wired up - the push trigger is commented out so it only runs manually, and one of the two files has a typo in a step. Before I finish it properly:

1) The repo is public, so GitHub-hosted minutes are free. Is there any real reason to run a self-hosted runner on a low-end VPS? I see people doing it and I can't tell whether it's about cost, build speed, or CI that isn't GitHub.
2) If you do self-host: how much RAM does a Rust + Tauri build actually need before it falls over - 2 GB, or does it need 4 GB+?
3) Where do you host the build artifacts (binaries/installers)? GitHub Releases is the obvious answer - is there a reason to put them on object storage (R2 / Bunny / Backblaze) instead?
4) Windows code signing: for a small project, did you pay for a certificate or just accept the SmartScreen warning?
5) For anyone who maintains a fork or a continuation of an upstream project: how do you keep the upstream credit obvious (README, LICENSE, commit history) so nobody assumes you wrote all of it? I'd like to get that right before I publish a release.

I'll come back and write up whatever ends up working.

yeungon

so there might be something wrong with configuration. github action is totally free for FOSS (for now), so why not ?

xuwenxu

Thanks @yeungon - that was it: the push trigger was commented out and one step had a typo (yarn inst), so it never actually ran. I'll wire it up properly and report back once it builds.

Mainfrezzer

@xuwenxu said:

Is there any real reason to run a self-hosted runner on a low-end VPS?

dont do it, its not worth it. The performance of the pub runners are decentish. But still garabage in the grand scheme. If you have the hardware, just host the runners yourself otherwise dont bother with "crappy vps" at all.

Edit: just looked at one of my repos, which compiles a kernel, takes 50 minutes on pub runners, where it takes like 10 on my gimped runner while locked down to 6 cores

API

@Mainfrezzer said:

@xuwenxu said:

Is there any real reason to run a self-hosted runner on a low-end VPS?

dont do it, its not worth it. The performance of the pub runners are decentish. But still garabage in the grand scheme. If you have the hardware, just host the runners yourself otherwise dont bother with "crappy vps" at all.

Completely agree, it's fine with the public runners unless performance is absolutely critical and you don't mind yet another potential failure point.

xuwenxu

Ha, that 30min vs 17h comparison sealed it. No point self-hosting on a cheap VPS - just adding another thing to break. Sticking with GitHub runners. Thanks @Mainfrezzer @API!