i3 Mac or M-Series Rental: Choose the Right Entry Plan

If you need Xcode 27 or visionOS, choose M-series

If your project targets visionOS or needs Xcode 27 or later, start with Figment's M-series from $95/month and request a quote. Apple's Xcode system requirements list Xcode 27 as requiring macOS Tahoe 26.6, and Apple's porting guide says to use Xcode 26 or earlier on Intel. If your toolchain fits inside Xcode 26.x and has no Apple-silicon-only dependencies, the Intel i3 at $49/month is a sound choice. The checklist below shows which side of the line you are on.

What each plan is

Figment Intel i3 ($49/month): A physical Intel Mac. Runs macOS and supports Xcode 26 or earlier. It can cross-compile arm64 device apps and universal macOS binaries; it cannot execute arm64-only binaries, build with Xcode 27, or build visionOS targets. Physical provisioning is request-based; exact RAM, disk, and macOS version are confirmed in the quote. The separate $29 plan is a virtual Intel macOS environment (Linux/KVM, no GPU acceleration, no audio) and is covered elsewhere — this page compares the physical i3 against the M-series.

Figment M-series (from $95/month): A physical Apple-silicon Mac. Runs arm64 natively, supports every current Xcode version, runs Intel binaries under Rosetta 2, and is required for visionOS. $95 is the entry price for an M-series configuration; the specific chip, RAM, and disk at that price are confirmed in the quote rather than advertised as a fixed spec. Physical provisioning is request-based.

The headline delta is $46/month, or $552/year. Whether that is money well spent depends on your toolchain, not a general preference for newer hardware.

Xcode and OS compatibility

Verified on Apple's Xcode system requirements page on 2026-11-10:

macOS Tahoe itself does run on a small set of Intel Macs — MacBook Pro 16" (2019), MacBook Pro 13" (2020, four TB3), iMac 27" 5K (2020), and Mac Pro (2019), per Apple support article 122867. Running Tahoe on an eligible Intel Mac still does not unlock Xcode 27, which is Apple-silicon-only. Figment's i3 and M-series images are confirmed per quote; the current VM image is being installed with Sequoia.

visionOS development and the visionOS simulator require Apple silicon, per the same Apple page. Intel Xcode 26 can still run many supported iOS simulators — check the exact simulator runtime against your Xcode version's release notes before assuming a given simulator needs M-series.

Architecture and toolchain checklist

Go row by row. If any "M-series required" cell matches a live project requirement, the i3 cannot do the job.

A one-minute architecture check

Before committing to i3, inspect the binary of your current build on any Mac you already use. This is an unexecuted example — copy it into your shell, substitute your path, and run it yourself:

# Inspect the architectures present in a compiled binary.
BINARY="/path/to/YourApp.app/Contents/MacOS/YourApp"
lipo -info "$BINARY"
file "$BINARY"

If lipo reports only x86_64, the i3 builds and runs it natively. If it reports arm64 (alone or in a universal slice) you are already shipping Apple-silicon code; that is fine on either plan, but any binary dependency that ships only an arm64 slice (common in .binaryTarget entries in Package.swift) will fail to link on Intel.

Entry-price comparison with other Mac hosts

The cheapest listed entry price is not the same as equal hardware. These are each vendor's own entry row, cited beside the number.

Figment i3 at $49 has the lowest listed physical Intel entry price in this set; allocation and access are confirmed in the quote, but Mac Mini Vault's Intel rows are not currently in stock, so a true entry-Intel comparison is limited. On M-series, CloudMac's $999/year undercuts 12 × $95 = $1,140 by $141, and $95 at Figment is an unspecified M-series entry — not a verified M4/16 GB match for CloudMac's $999/year or MacStadium's $149 M4.S. Figment's difference on managed CI setup is a separate plan ($249 Managed Build, $999 Managed Team) and is not what the $95 line buys.

Upgrade math and when to re-evaluate

There is no payback calculation here: if Xcode 27 or visionOS is a requirement, no price gap is relevant, the i3 cannot do the job. If your deployment targets today still fit inside Xcode 26.x, re-evaluate before each Apple fall release — the Xcode cadence is the usual trigger for Intel-to-Apple-silicon moves.

How to order

1. Run the checklist against your current Package.swift, your Xcode version, and your deployment targets.
2. If every row lands in the Intel column: request the i3. Specify the macOS image and disk you need.
3. If any row needs Apple silicon: request an M-series quote and confirm chip, RAM, disk, and macOS version in writing before payment. Tax and any fees apply as stated in the quote.
4. After provisioning, install Xcode from your Apple Developer account, load signing material through your secret manager rather than committing it, and register your CI runner against your existing pipeline.

Start at Figment →

Related reading

• Figment vs MacStadium
• Figment vs MacInCloud
• Managed Build Mac or Team: choosing the managed tier