# Tart + Orchard (Cirrus Labs)

Official pricing: https://tart.run/licensing/  
Category: macos · Isolation: apple-vm

## Pricing regimes (raw)

- **Self-hosted licence on your own Macs (compute not included)** (resource): $0/vCPU-h, $0/GiB-h [alt]

## Features

Yes: snapshots, fork/clone, pause/resume, persistent disk, volumes, ≥24 h sessions, custom image (Docker or snapshot), start from your own snapshot, your own Docker/OCI image, full VM (own kernel), Docker inside, nested virtualization, root, desktop GUI, SSH, egress allowlist, self-hosting, BYOC, open source, arm64, macOS, live fork (no pause), automatic snapshots, snapshots on demand, gVisor or VM (no shared kernel), inbound access rules, firewall inside (nftables), extra volumes, shared volumes

No: memory snapshots, idle auto-stop, browser, computer-use API, code interpreter, browser + desktop control, anti-bot stealth, CAPTCHA solving, residential IPs, preinstalled agents, public IPv4, HTTPS preview URLs, static egress IP, SOC 2, HIPAA, SSO, GPU, Windows, Python, Node.js, GPU desktop, HTTP method/path egress rules, wake on request, live resize, memory fork, webhooks, EU data residency, MCP server, agent harness API, hosted agent API (their own agent), secret proxy, secret proxy for any API

Unknown: everything else. Evidence (source + quote) per feature: https://battleships.dev/data/providers/tart-orchard.json → feature_evidence

## Caveats

- Not a hosted service: the engine must add the cost of the Macs you run it on. Plan fees are yearly licences shown as /12.
- Licence is FSL-1.1-ALv2 (Functional Source License, source-available; each release becomes Apache-2.0 after 2 years). open_source true in the loose sense. Competing Use (reselling it as a substitute commercial product/service) is not permitted.
- Examples inside the Free Tier: 12 Mac minis x 8 cores running up to 24 VMs; 13 Mac minis exceed it.
- Status (verified 2026-09-28, cirruslabs.org): Cirrus Labs agreed to join OpenAI (2026-04-07); Cirrus CI shut down 2026-06-01; Cirrus Runners closed to new customers; Tart/Vetu/Orchard to be relicensed under a more permissive licence and "we have also stopped charging licensing fees". Paid tiers flagged legacy. The software itself is not discontinued, so the self-hosted regime is not flagged legacy; future maintenance is uncertain.
- Apple macOS SLA: leasing a Mac requires a minimum lease of 24 consecutive hours with sole use by the lessee, and allows at most 2 additional macOS VMs per Mac.
- Software licence only: you supply and pay for the Mac hardware, so the estimate excludes compute.
- Never has a compute price: no_price_reason "software licence only - bring your own Macs" (needs engine support to surface instead of the generic "no usable compute price").
- Project is actively maintained under OpenAI's GitHub org (github.com/openai/tart; releases 2.38.0-2.40.0 on 2026-09-24..28).

## How this provider charges


Tart is a macOS/Linux VM manager built on Apple's Virtualization.framework, and Orchard is its orchestrator. Both are **software you run on your own Macs** under a Fair Source licence. It is free up to a threshold, then licensed per year by host CPU cores. All performance and efficiency cores count. There is no hosted compute: add the Mac rental (Scaleway, MacStadium, AWS EC2 Mac, ...) yourself.

## Regime table

| # | Regime | When it applies | How billed | Numbers | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Free Tier | ≤ 100 host CPU cores (Tart) and ≤ 4 Orchard workers per organization. Personal workstations always royalty-free | – | $0 | https://tart.run/licensing/ |
| 2 | Gold | Above Free Tier, up to 500 cores / 20 workers | Yearly licence (email licensing@cirruslabs.org) | **$12,000/year** | same |
| 3 | Platinum | Up to 3,000 cores / 200 workers | Yearly | **$36,000/year** | same |
| 4 | Diamond | Above Platinum, unlimited workers | Per core per year | **$12 per CPU core per year** | same |
| 5 | Priority support | All paid tiers | Included | Sev-1 first response 30 min, 24×7 | same |

## Gotchas

1. **The licence counts every host core, not VM vCPUs.** 13 Mac minis × 8 cores already exceeds the free tier.
2. **Apple limits apply to your Macs:** 2 macOS VMs per Mac and a 24 h minimum lease if you rent them.
3. **Company status:** OakHost's blog (third party) says Cirrus Labs is shutting down after joining OpenAI. The licensing page is unchanged, so the future of the paid tiers is unverified.
4. The card has a single `alt` mode with $0 compute. The engine must add the Mac rental.

## Worked example

Workload: 4 vCPU / 8 GiB, 50 concurrent, 8 h × 22 days.

| Setup | Licence | Macs | Monthly |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25 × Scaleway M2-M (8c/16 GB), 2 VMs each, monthly commitment | 200 cores → Gold $1,000/mo | 25 × $134.55 = $3,363.75 | **$4,363.75** |
| 50 × Scaleway M1-M (8c/8 GB), 1 VM each | 400 cores → Gold $1,000/mo | 50 × $87.75 = $4,387.50 | $5,387.50 |
| ≤ 12 Mac minis (≤ 100 cores) | Free | – | licence $0 |

Sources: https://tart.run/licensing/ · https://tart.run/ · https://www.oakhost.com/blog/migrating-from-cirrus-runner