Bencher is a continuous benchmarking platform that helps software engineers and agents catch performance regressions before they merge. Bencher Bare Metal runs your benchmarks on the exact same bare metal, whether launched from your local terminal, an agent sandbox, or in CI.

Built for teams where performance matters:

• Databases
• Compilers
• Browsers
• Runtimes
• Networking stacks
• Cryptographic libraries
• Operating Systems

Most teams start on GitHub Actions runners with a benchmark comparison script. That approach breaks down when noisy shared CI runners hide real performance regressions.

• Typical CI runners: >30% variance
• Bencher Bare Metal runners: <2% variance

When a number moves, it means something.

Benchmark for free →   Bare Metal Quickstart

Used by the teams behind Microsoft snmalloc, Google Sedpack, GitLab Git, pnpm, conda, Firezone, and Servo.

🐰 Use the GitHub Action with your project

Shipping a performance regression is expensive:

• A database regression on a hot path pages someone at 2am
• A compiler regression silently makes every downstream build slower
• A browser engine ships a 10% paint regression and users notice
• A crypto library that adds a microsecond to a handshake breaks an SLA

Without trustworthy benchmarks in the PR workflow, you find out when users do.

Local benchmarks aren't reproducible. Every check means stopping work to pull the baseline branch and wait on a comparison. Most engineers skip it.

CI runners are shared and noisy. Noisy benchmarks train engineers to ignore alerts. Performance regressions silently ship.

If you can't tell a real regression from noise, the results are worthless. So teams stop looking.

1. Run: Run your benchmarks locally or in CI using the exact same bare metal runners and your favorite benchmarking tools. The bencher CLI orchestrates running your benchmarks on bare metal and stores the results.
2. Track: Track the results of your benchmarks over time. Monitor, query, and graph the results using the Bencher web console based on the source branch, testbed, benchmark, and measure.
3. Catch: Catch performance regressions locally or in CI using the exact same bare metal hardware. Bencher uses state of the art, customizable analytics to detect performance regressions before they merge.

For the same reasons that unit tests are run to prevent feature regressions, benchmarks should be run with Bencher to prevent performance regressions. Performance bugs are bugs!

🚨 1 ALERT: Threshold Boundary Limit exceeded!

Bencher is a suite of bare metal continuous benchmarking tools:

• bencher CLI: run benchmarks and publish results
• Bencher API Server: store, query, and alert on results
• Bencher Console: web UI for tracking and graphing
• Bencher Bare Metal runner: bare metal benchmark execution

The best place to start is the Bare Metal Quickstart.

For on-prem deployments, check out the Bencher Self-Hosted Quickstart.

• Tutorial
  • Quickstart
  • Bare Metal Quickstart
  • Self-Hosted Quickstart
• How To
  • Install CLI
  • Claim Benchmark Results
  • Track Benchmarks in CI
  • GitHub Actions
  • GitLab CI/CD
  • Track Custom Benchmarks
  • Track Build Time
  • Track File Size
  • Self-Hosted GitHub App
  • Self-Hosted Google OAuth
• Explanation
  • Benchmarking Overview
  • Bare Metal Overview
  • bencher run
  • Bare Metal Images
  • Branches & Start Points
  • Testbeds & Specs
  • Thresholds & Alerts
  • Benchmark Adapters
  • Continuous Benchmarking
  • Bencher Self-Hosted
  • Bencher Talks
• Reference
  • REST API
  • Bencher Metric Format
  • Bencher Compose
  • bencher noise
  • Console Server Config
  • API Server Config
  • Changelog
  • Roadmap
  • Prior Art
  • Architecture
  • Database Schema

🌐 Also available in:

• 简体中文
• Español
• Português do Brasil
• Русский
• 日本語
• Français
• Deutsch
• 한국어

• {...} JSON
  • Custom benchmark harness support
  • Build Time (Compile Time)
  • File Size (Binary Size)
• #️⃣ C#
  • BenchmarkDotNet
• ➕ C++
  • Catch2
  • Google Benchmark
• 🎯 Dart
  • benchmark_harness
• 🕳 Go
  • go test -bench
• ☕️ Java
  • Java Microbenchmark Harness (JMH)
• 🕸 JavaScript
  • Benchmark.js
  • console.time/console.timeEnd
  • Vitest
• 🐍 Python
  • airspeed velocity
  • pytest-benchmark
• ♦️ Ruby
  • Benchmark
• 🦀 Rust
  • libtest bench
  • Criterion
  • Iai
  • Gungraun (formerly Iai-Callgrind)
• ❯_ Shell
  • Hyperfine

👉 For more details see the explanation of benchmark harness adapters.

Don't see your harness? Open an issue →

👉 Checkout all public projects.

• Bencher Cloud: Zero infrastructure to manage. On-demand bare metal runners, billed by the minute. Pay for your benchmark runs, not idle servers. Benchmark for free →
• Bencher Self-Hosted: Deploy Bencher on your own infrastructure. Bare metal, Docker, or Kubernetes. Full control, no data leaving your environment. Deploy in 60 seconds →

Install the Bencher CLI using the GitHub Action, and use it for continuous benchmarking in your project.

name: Continuous Benchmarking with Bencher
on:
  push:
    branches: main
jobs:
  benchmark_with_bencher:
    name: Benchmark with Bencher
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    env:
      BENCHER_PROJECT: my-project-slug
      BENCHER_API_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.BENCHER_API_TOKEN }}
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v6
      - uses: bencherdev/bencher@main
      - run: bencher run "bencher mock"

Supported Operating Systems:

• Linux (x86_64 & ARM64)
• macOS (x86_64 & ARM64)
• Windows (x86_64 & ARM64)

👉 For more details see the explanation of how to use GitHub Actions.

Add BENCHER_API_TOKEN to you Repository secrets (ex: Repo -> Settings -> Secrets and variables -> Actions -> New repository secret). You can find your API tokens by running bencher token list my-user-slug or view them in the Bencher Console.

You can set the bencher run CLI subcommand to error if an Alert is generated with the --error-on-alert flag.

bencher run --error-on-alert "bencher mock"

👉 For more details see the explanation of bencher run.

You can set the bencher run CLI subcommand to comment on a PR with the --github-actions argument.

bencher run --github-actions "${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}" "bencher mock"

👉 For more details see the explanation of bencher run.

👉 See the example PR comment above.

There is also an optional version argument to specify an exact version of the Bencher CLI to use. Otherwise, it will default to using the latest CLI version.

- uses: bencherdev/bencher@main
  with:
    version: 0.6.16

Specify an exact version if using Bencher Self-Hosted. Do not specify an exact version if using Bencher Cloud as there are still occasional breaking changes.

To set up a development environment, see the Development Getting Started guide.

All content that resides under any directory or feature named "plus" is licensed under the Bencher Plus License.

All other content is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 or MIT License at your discretion.

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in Bencher by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.