Incredibuild

Incredibuild is build acceleration software for software teams. It makes slow builds fast by sending compile jobs to spare computers on your network or in the cloud. It also reuses work it has already done. A big C++ build that takes an hour on one machine can finish in minutes when dozens of idle CPUs share it.

It is most popular with game studios, and it ships inside Microsoft Visual Studio. The company was founded in Israel in 2002 under the name Xoreax. Since May 2026 it also runs Islo, a sandbox for AI coding agents.

Incredibuild is a general developer tool, not a Solana project. It has no token and no on-chain programs. We found no Solana integration in its official sources as of October 2026.

How does Incredibuild work?

Incredibuild splits a build into many small tasks and runs them on other machines at once. Each source file compiles on its own, so the work spreads well. The other machines send back the results, and your computer puts the final program together. You don't change your code or your build scripts.

A central service, the coordinator, hands jobs to machines with spare cores. Teams can run it themselves or use a managed coordinator hosted on AWS. They can also add cloud machines when their own network runs short.

The engine was first sold as IncrediBuild-XGE. XGE stands for Xoreax Grid Engine, after the company's first name (The Register, 2012). It works by virtualising processes. A remote machine can run a compile step as if it were your own PC, without having your project installed.

Incredibuild Build Cache and distributed processing

Incredibuild saves time in two ways. Distributed processing runs tasks side by side across many CPUs. Build Cache keeps outputs it has already made and shares them with the whole team. An unchanged file is never compiled twice, whichever machine asks. The company's own line is "cache what you can, distribute what you can't."

The same engine speeds up more than compiling. It also handles tests, shader builds and code analysis. Its integrations page lists:

• Build systems: Bazel, Bitbake, CMake, Make, MSBuild, Ninja and WAF
• Compilers: Clang/LLVM, CUDA, GCC, MSVC and tcc
• IDEs: Visual Studio, VS Code, CLion and other JetBrains IDEs, Eclipse, Qt Creator and Code::Blocks
• Containers: Docker, Kubernetes, Podman, WSL and chroot
• Large projects: AOSP and Android Automotive, Chromium, the Linux kernel, Yocto, Qt and TensorFlow

The docs cover Windows, Linux and macOS, plus cloud setups.

What is Incredibuild in Visual Studio?

If you find Incredibuild on your computer, it probably came with Visual Studio. It has shipped with Visual Studio since 2015. It is an optional part of the desktop, game and mobile workloads (Incredibuild). The Marketplace listing offers a free-forever licence for two developers. Build Cache costs extra.

Incredibuild installs an agent service. It lets your machine start shared builds and, if set up, lend its CPU to others. Don't need it? The support wiki says you can remove it from Windows "Add or remove programs" or its own installer. Pick "Uninstall IncrediBuild". If you run the Enterprise edition and want to keep its data, contact support first.

Incredibuild for Unreal Engine and game development

Game studios are Incredibuild's oldest market. Wikipedia says gaming was about 60% of its business in 2021. Clients named there include Epic Games, Electronic Arts and FromSoftware. The integrations page lists Unreal Engine (editor and shaders), CryEngine and O3DE. It also lists console kits for PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch.

The homepage gives named results. Bandai Namco Studios cut one compile from 50 minutes to 18. Cerence says rebuilds of 10 to 15 minutes fell to about 30 seconds. Other named customers include Adobe, HSBC, Sharkmob and The Coalition. These are the vendor's own case studies, not independent tests.

Incredibuild CI runners for GitHub Actions and GitLab

Incredibuild now rents out CI runners. These are machines it hosts to run your pipeline jobs. The homepage claims "8× faster CI runners." To switch a GitHub Actions job, you change one label, from ubuntu-24.04 to incredibuild-runner. Caching then turns on by itself.

As of October 2026 the runners are in beta. The docs limit them to Linux on Ubuntu x64. They cover GitHub Actions and GitLab CI. For other CI tools, Incredibuild's agents plug into Jenkins, TeamCity, Azure DevOps and Bamboo.

The CI push grew after Incredibuild bought Garden in November 2024. Garden is a German startup with an open-source tool for Kubernetes-based development and CI. The price was about $65 million in cash and shares (DevOps.com, Calcalist).

Islo: Incredibuild's sandbox for AI coding agents

Islo gives each AI coding agent its own walled-off cloud machine. The agent can work around the clock without touching a developer's laptop. Incredibuild launched it on May 4, 2026 (DevOps Digest). The Islo site says it is "built by the team behind Incredibuild."

Each sandbox is a real development machine. A gateway links agents to GitHub, Jira and Linear without giving them the raw passwords or keys. Rules set what each agent can reach. Islo can run alone or next to Incredibuild's build speed-ups.

Pricing has changed since launch. Launch coverage described a free plan for up to five sandboxes at once and a paid plan. The Islo pricing page now charges only for use: $0.07 per CPU-hour, $0.04 per GB-hour of memory and a tiny fee for storage. New users get free credits, and stopped machines cost nothing.

In November 2025 Incredibuild bought Kypso, an AI-agent startup. Former Snyk engineers Adam Gold and Tomer Ezer founded it in 2023. The deal added agents for testing, code scanning and CI work (DevOps Digest). Through autumn 2026, Incredibuild's X account has promoted Islo meetups in San Francisco and Tel Aviv.

Incredibuild pricing and free plan

Incredibuild is free forever for up to two developers through Visual Studio. Paid team and enterprise plans have no public prices. The website sends buyers to a free trial or a sales call. Build Cache is sold as an extra. Islo has its own pay-per-use pricing, covered above.

Who should use Incredibuild?

Incredibuild suits teams whose builds are slow because they compile lots of C or C++ code. Its core users are large game studios, car and embedded software teams, and firms building Android or Chromium-sized code. It pays off most when you already own many machines with idle CPUs, or you are happy to rent cloud capacity.

It suits small projects less. A solo developer with a five-minute build gains little. Teams whose builds are slowed by linking or network speed, not compiling, may also see small gains. Teams on GitHub Actions and Linux can try the CI runners, but should treat them as beta.

Is Incredibuild safe? Risks and limitations

Incredibuild is closed-source paid software. Your code and build steps run on other machines or on Incredibuild's cloud runners. That is a trust decision for teams with sensitive code. Buyers should ask for current security certifications during procurement, as we could not confirm them from a public source. Its Build Guard beta does produce software bills of materials (SBOMs) for supply-chain audits.

The speed-up claims, such as "8×" and the named case studies, come from Incredibuild itself. Your results depend on how parallel your build is, your network and how many machines help. CI runners and Build Guard are still in beta. Team pricing is not public, so budgeting needs a sales call.

It carries none of the usual crypto risks. There is no token, wallet or smart contract involved.

Incredibuild vs FASTBuild, distcc and other alternatives

Incredibuild is the most complete paid option, especially on Windows and Visual Studio. Open-source tools are free but take more setup. FASTBuild is a free build system with sharing and caching for Windows, Linux and macOS. The catch is that you must describe your build in its own format. On Linux, distcc shares C and C++ compiles for free (AlternativeTo).

Bazel has remote caching and remote execution built in. Incredibuild supports Bazel, and in September 2026 its blog described its own contributions to the Bazel project. Teams already on Bazel should compare Bazel's built-in remote execution with Incredibuild before buying.

Incredibuild company history and team

• 2002: Founded in Israel as Xoreax. Version 1.3 won a Game Developer Magazine award in 2003.
• 2015: Bundled into Visual Studio.
• 2024: Bought Garden for about $65 million.
• 2025: Shimon Hason became CEO in March. He replaced Tami Mazel Shachar, who stayed on the board. Kypso was bought in November.
• 2026: Launched Islo in May.

Hason previously led corporate development at Datadog and ran OzCode. In March 2025 Calcalist reported that Incredibuild had about 150 staff in Israel, the US, China, Japan and Ukraine. It had raised $55 million from backers including Insight Partners, Hiro Capital and Fortissimo.

Does Incredibuild work for Solana and Rust development?

Not in any documented way. Solana programs are mostly written in Rust and built with Cargo. Incredibuild's integrations page does not list Rust or Cargo. Its strength is C and C++ toolchains. A Solana team with a large C++ code base could in principle use it through Clang or GCC, but we found no public case of one doing so.