used to self-host gitlab CI runners around the same year also for our long running CI's due to db migrations + prepared data loading for tests. we rent 7*4$ VPS, install gitlab CI runners on them, saving us from hundreds $$$ per month and 45mins/merge (with test running on main branch only) to 7*4$/month and 7-9mins/commit (yes, we run full test on each commit and let gitlab auto-cancel older one). with bonus: FE team get live version of their changes on each MR.

* its 7 VPS because we separated the tests by modules and we have 7 major modules. * edit: formatting