Figment vs BalHost: Mac Hosting Compared

If BalHost is on your short list and you want a direct answer: for most iOS/macOS CI work, request Figment's M-series Mac from $95/month through /mac-hosting/start. If your pipeline needs a known-fixed M4 / 16 GB / 256 GB machine with Fastlane and CocoaPods already installed, BalHost at $250/month, or $225/month effective on a $2,700 annual prepay is the straightforward pick. The headline entry-price gap is $155/month, but these are not the same box — Figment's exact M-series chip and RAM are fixed when you place the request, and Figment also offers a $29 virtual Intel macOS plan BalHost does not match.

What BalHost Publishes

BalHost sells a single Mac hosting configuration as of November 2026, per the macOS Server product page:

• Apple M4 Mac mini, 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU
• 16 GB unified memory, 256 GB NVMe SSD
• 1 Gbit/s port, unlimited traffic, 1 dedicated IPv4
• macOS Sequoia, Istanbul (Turkey) data center
• Xcode and Command Line Tools pre-installed; Fastlane, Homebrew, CocoaPods, Git, Ruby, Python, Node.js ready to use
• Full sudo/admin access via SSH, VNC, Apple Remote Desktop, Screen Sharing
• "99.98% uptime guarantee" and 24/7 support
• Provisioning in 1–4 hours on average

Billing options published on that page:

The annual plan is a 10% discount — $300 saved over 12 months — but the full $2,700 is paid upfront. No setup fee and no explicit annual-prepay refund policy are shown on the pricing page; confirm cancellation terms with BalHost before prepaying. Tax or VAT is as stated in BalHost's own checkout — the pricing page lists the figures above in USD.

What Figment Publishes

Figment's current retail offers for Mac work:

• Virtual Intel macOS — $29/month. 2 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM, 80 GiB disk. Virtualized Intel macOS (not Apple silicon, no GPU acceleration, no audio). It runs compatible Intel Mac toolchains, including supported Xcode 26-or-earlier releases — verify the exact Xcode/macOS pair you plan to use against Apple's Xcode system requirements. It is a real macOS environment.
• i3 Mac — $49/month. Physical Intel; collecting requests until supply is confirmed.
• M-series Mac — from $95/month. Physical Apple silicon. Specific chip generation, RAM and disk are confirmed when you request a quote; the $95 entry price is not a guaranteed M4 / 16 GB spec.
• Managed Build Mac — $249/month. One M-series Mac, CI pipeline setup, backups, monitoring, 30 minutes of monthly engineering support.
• Managed Mac Team — $999/month. Two M-series Macs, two CI runners, team setup, backups, monitoring, one hour of monthly support.

Physical plans are currently fulfilled against confirmed supply. Figment does not publish an uptime SLA, a free trial, a benchmark or a provisioning speed, so confirm any required service commitment and evaluation terms in the quote.

12-Month Cost, Honestly

Two honest distinctions:

1. Entry price is not equal hardware. BalHost's $250 buys a known M4 / 16 GB / 256 GB machine. Figment's $95 is the starting M-series price; the chip generation and memory are set at quote time. Compare at the same confirmed spec before declaring a winner.
2. Where BalHost is actually cheaper on equal-ish hardware. If you want a managed M-series build box with CI pre-wired, Figment's Managed Build Mac ($2,988/yr) is slightly more than BalHost's monthly rate for a full year ($3,000) and marginally more than BalHost's annual prepay ($2,700). The self-managed Figment M-series at $95 is the real savings; the managed tier is a near wash against BalHost annual.

Hardware, Access and Toolchain Fit

BalHost documents full sudo/admin access on its M4 Mac mini via SSH, VNC, Apple Remote Desktop and Screen Sharing. On Figment's M-series, confirm the access level with Figment at request time if your CI needs sudo or installs system-level certificates.

Apple's toolchain rules do not collapse into a single OS floor. Xcode 27 requires macOS Tahoe 26.6 and does not run on Intel. Earlier Xcode 26.x releases vary in their minimum macOS; some 26.x versions still ship iOS simulator runtimes that execute on Intel hosts. visionOS and the visionOS Simulator require Apple silicon. Check the specific Xcode/macOS pair you need against Apple's published system requirements before choosing between Figment's Intel VM and an M-series request.

BalHost's image includes Fastlane, Homebrew, Xcode, CocoaPods, Command Line Tools, Git, Ruby, Python and Node.js on first boot. Figment's standard M-series is self-managed; the Managed Build Mac ($249) includes the CI pipeline setup. If you need Fastlane wired on day one without engineering effort, that is the managed tier's job.

Location matters for latency and compliance: BalHost is in Istanbul. Figment's region details are confirmed at quote; state your target region in the request.

Test the Machine on Your Own Project

Neither BalHost nor Figment publishes a benchmark that matches your workload, so the only credible comparison is your own clean build. The script below is an unexecuted example — we have not run it for you, and it is not a benchmark result. It stops on the first failure, so a build error can never be recorded as a fast run.

set -euo pipefail

# 1. Clone the project you actually ship
git clone "$YOUR_REPO_URL" app && cd app

# 2. Confirm the real scheme name before timing
xcodebuild -list

# 3. Time a clean build; the script aborts on failure
SCHEME="$YOUR_SCHEME"            # from xcodebuild -list
DEST="platform=macOS"            # or your iOS Simulator destination
time xcodebuild clean build \
  -scheme "$SCHEME" \
  -destination "$DEST" \
  CODE_SIGNING_ALLOWED=NO

# 4. Note the machine state for the record
sysctl hw.model hw.logicalcpu hw.memsize

Run it on the BalHost machine during the 1–4 hour post-provisioning window and on the Figment unit after your request is fulfilled. Compare wall-clock times for the same commit.

BalHost → Figment Migration Steps

• Inventory tools, not raw env. On the BalHost M4, run brew bundle dump --file=Brewfile and gem list > gems.txt. Do not run env > env.txt; it will capture API keys in plaintext. Write down the required secret names and restore the values through your own secret manager on the Figment host.
• Archive Fastlane config. Copy fastlane/Fastfile, fastlane/Appfile and fastlane/Matchfile. Keep .env* out of git.
• Export signing identities. In Keychain Access, select each signing certificate together with its matching private key and export as an encrypted .p12. Provisioning profiles are files under ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/ — copy them directly; they are not exported from Keychain.
• Snapshot source. Push all branches and tags; run CI green on BalHost one last time.
• Request the Figment plan at /mac-hosting/start. Physical M-series is supply-dependent; get a confirmed hardware spec and provisioning date before you cancel BalHost.
• Rebuild the toolchain on Figment: brew bundle --file=Brewfile, bundle install, import .p12 certs (with private keys), drop provisioning profiles into ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/.
• Update your own allowlists. If your CI service, artifact store or self-managed firewall allowlisted the BalHost IP, swap in the Figment IP there. There is no public App Store Connect or TestFlight webhook IP allowlist to maintain.
• Re-run the build script above with your real repo and scheme name.
• Cancel BalHost in the vendor portal before the next billing date. On the annual plan, confirm cancellation terms with BalHost for unused months.

Pick the Figment Plan

The $29 virtual Intel macOS plan is the fastest way to prove your pipeline runs at all before committing to a physical M-series quote. It cannot execute ARM-only binaries and cannot run the visionOS Simulator; for those, use the M-series request and state the required chip class, RAM or GPU workload in the quote.

Start your Figment request at /mac-hosting/start.

Related reading:

• Figment vs Bohemian Silicon: Mac Hosting Compared
• Figment vs Casbay: Mac Hosting Compared in 2026
• Buy or Rent a Mac: Full Cost Comparison