Your GitHub Actions cache is the real bottleneck

Bitrise argues that while leading GitHub Actions runner providers have similar raw CPU performance, mobile CI pipelines are more constrained by cold starts and ineffective caching than by processor speed alone. It reports that its Build Hub Mac and Linux machines outperform comparable GitHub-hosted runners in Xcode and Android build benchmarks, while noting that GitHub’s 10 GB per-repository cache limit can be insufficient for large mobile projects containing Xcode DerivedData, CocoaPods, Node modules, and other dependencies. The piece distinguishes dependency caching, which avoids repeated downloads, from build or compilation caching, which reuses compiled outputs and can reduce the time spent rebuilding unchanged code. It highlights Xcode 26’s Swift Compilation Caching as a new option for iOS build caching and promotes Bitrise Build Cache as a co-located cache service with larger dependency storage and support for Xcode, React Native, Gradle, and Bazel. It recommends teams assess cache hit rates, cache proximity to runners, and whether compiled artifacts are cached before prioritizing more powerful CI hardware.

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