Make ARM64 Windows and Linux runner images available for free

[itpropro]

Description

Many OSS projects can only use free images, it would therefore be great to add the ARM64 Linux and Windows runner images to the free tier. Especially with Windows on ARM getting more and more adoption, this would help a lot.

Platforms affected

• Azure DevOps
• GitHub Actions - Standard Runners
• GitHub Actions - Larger Runners

Runner images affected

• Ubuntu 20.04
• Ubuntu 22.04
• Ubuntu 24.04
• macOS 12
• macOS 13
• macOS 13 Arm64
• macOS 14
• macOS 14 Arm64
• macOS 15
• macOS 15 Arm64
• Windows Server 2019
• Windows Server 2022

Image version and build link

Is it regression?

No

Expected behavior

ARM64 Linux and Windows runners be available on free tier

Actual behavior

ARM64 Linux and Windows runners are not available for most OSS projects

Repro steps

Try to use ARM64 Linux and Windows runners in free tier

[hemanthmanga]

Hi @itpropro, Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. We are looking into this issue and will update you on this issue after investigating.

[mayeut]

It was announced in https://github.blog/changelog/2024-06-03-actions-arm-based-linux-and-windows-runners-are-now-in-public-beta/ that the expectation was that it would be available before the end of the year for OSS project:

Arm runners are available to customers on our Team and Enterprise Cloud plans. We expect to begin offering Arm runners for open source and personal accounts by the end of the year.

However, it's not planned as such in the roadmap (just "Future" rather than "Q4 2024 – Oct-Dec"): github/roadmap#970

A clarification of what to expect would be nice, thanks.

[agracio]

Looking at table https://github.com/orgs/github/projects/4247/views/2 item 157 has a title "GitHub Actions: Arm based hosted runners for OSS" however status says 'future' not included even in 'Q1 2025 - Jan-Mar' roadmap.

[Kichura]

This pretty much seems to matter nowadays given that ARM64 has started to increase in popularity, and given that AMD64 images are currently the only available variant to the free tier - i very much agree that this should be considered at some point.