Figment vs Flow Swiss: Mac Hosting Compared

Quick verdict

Flow Swiss meters Mac bare metal purely by the hour at a published CHF rate, with a 24-hour minimum and billing that continues while the machine is powered off (doc.flow.swiss pricing). That suits short, bursty allocations. For continuous CI or a machine you keep for most of the month, Figment's flat-rate Macs are cheaper on an entry-price basis: the i3 Mac at $49/month, M-series from $95/month, or Managed Build Mac at $249/month with CI setup, backups, monitoring and 30 minutes of monthly support. If your Intel workload is light, Figment's $29 virtual Intel macOS VM (2 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM, 80 GiB disk) runs compatible Intel Mac toolchains, including supported Xcode 26 or earlier releases. Specific physical M-series chip, RAM and storage are confirmed at quote; Figment does not publish an uptime SLA or trial.

What Flow Swiss publishes

Flow Swiss is a Swiss cloud provider. Its Mac bare-metal catalog is priced in CHF per hour, 24 hours a day. The monthly figures on the page are 730-hour estimates, not a capped flat rate. The 24-hour minimum applies per macOS license, and billing continues when the device is switched off. Each machine includes one elastic public IPv4 address, 20 TB of outbound traffic per month, and Flow's Economy Support plan on a best-effort basis (all per doc.flow.swiss/platform/pricing/mac-bare-metal).

Approximate CHF/USD cross from ECB reference rates on 10 November 2026: 1 EUR = 1.1214 USD and 1 EUR = 0.9203 CHF, so 1 CHF ≈ $1.218 USD (ECB EUR/USD, ECB EUR/CHF). Rates fluctuate and bank or card fees apply; verify at purchase.

Hourly break-even vs flat monthly

Flow Swiss has no monthly cap, so your real cost depends on the days the machine is allocated to you (not the hours you actively build). Figment's physical M-series starts at $95/month with chip, RAM and storage confirmed at quote; it is not an M4-equivalent by default.

M-class entry: Flow Swiss M1 (CHF 0.27/hr) vs Figment M-series entry ($95/month)

Daily Flow Swiss cost: 24 × CHF 0.27 = CHF 6.48/day (≈ $7.89 at the ECB cross above).

Break-even: $95 ÷ $7.89 ≈ 12.04 days.

M2 class: Flow Swiss M2 (CHF 0.34/hr) vs Figment M-series entry ($95/month)

Daily: 24 × CHF 0.34 = CHF 8.16/day (≈ $9.94).

Break-even: $95 ÷ $9.94 ≈ 9.56 days.

Intel class: Flow Swiss 2018 Intel 16/256 (CHF 0.27/hr) vs Figment i3 ($49/month)

Daily $7.89. Break-even: $49 ÷ $7.89 ≈ 6.21 days. A CI runner left allocated for a full week already costs more on Flow Swiss than a month of Figment i3. Figment i3 orders currently collect requests until supply is confirmed, so file the request early if Intel is your target.

When Flow Swiss costs less: short project allocations removed from your account before the cumulative hours exceed the Figment flat rate. A single 24-hour M1 burst is roughly CHF 6.48. When Figment costs less (on entry price): steady allocations beyond the break-even points above. Chip and RAM parity are set at quote; above M2/24 GB, compare the Flow Swiss flavor directly against the configured Figment quote rather than the $95 entry price.

Hardware, toolchain and jurisdiction fit

Apple silicon. Flow Swiss publishes M1, M2, M2 Pro, M4 Pro (two core counts), M5 Pro and M4 Max in exact RAM/storage combinations. Figment's M-series starts at $95 with a specific chip/RAM/storage confirmed at quote; the Managed Mac Team at $999/month ships two M-series Macs with two CI runners, team setup, backups, monitoring and one hour of monthly support. For 48 GB+ or Mac Studio–class RAM, list the target on your Figment quote.

Intel. Flow Swiss carries three 2018 Mac mini SKUs up to 64 GB / 1 TB. Figment covers Intel two ways: the $29 virtual Intel macOS VM (2 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM, 80 GiB disk) on Linux/KVM — a real virtual Intel macOS that runs compatible Intel Mac toolchains in its browser-console desktop — and the $49 i3 Mac for physical Intel needs. The VM has no GPU acceleration or audio and is not Apple silicon; outbound CI agents installed on it can still connect to your CI service.

Xcode. Intel Macs do not run Xcode 27 (minimum macOS Tahoe 26.6). Several Xcode 26.x releases minimum out at macOS Sequoia 15.6, which is the last Intel-capable macOS line; confirm the exact Xcode/macOS pair on Apple's Xcode system requirements for your target. visionOS development requires Apple silicon. For iOS/macOS/tvOS/watchOS simulators, check the specific simulator runtime against your chosen Xcode row rather than assuming every runtime requires ARM.

Jurisdiction. Flow Swiss hosts in Switzerland, which may matter for Swiss/EU data-handling requirements over signed artifacts and secrets. Figment's datacenter location is not stated on the product page — ask on your quote if jurisdiction is a compliance factor. Tax and fees are whatever each vendor's actual order shows at checkout.

Flow Swiss to Figment migration plan

1. Snapshot allocations. Note each Flow Swiss flavor, when it was allocated, and when you plan to remove it. Removal is the only way to stop billing; the 24-hour minimum is per license.
2. Inventory. List CI agents, launchd/launchctl jobs, build schemes you actually use, and any shared caches (Homebrew, CocoaPods, SPM, Gradle, node_modules) worth re-seeding.
3. Repositories. Confirm each repo is pushed to your remote VCS and clone fresh on the Figment Mac.
4. Signing material. Export each code-signing identity from Keychain as an encrypted .p12 with its private key, and store it in your secret manager — never a plaintext file.
5. Provisioning profiles. Download the .mobileprovision files from the Apple Developer portal rather than exporting from Keychain (profiles are files, not Keychain items).
6. CI secrets. Transfer only the names of required environment variables and restore values through your CI platform's secret manager. Do not env > secrets.txt.
7. Request the Figment configuration. Open a request at /mac-hosting/start listing chip, RAM, storage and whether you need the Managed Build Mac wrap. For a Flow Swiss M2 Pro or higher, specify the target RAM and storage in the quote.
8. Install the CI agent on the Figment Mac and reconnect it to your orchestrator. Seed only the caches your builds actually need.
9. Update any allowlists you already run (artifact store, package registry, CI service) with the new egress IP. Apple does not publish a TestFlight/App Store Connect IP allowlist.
10. Parallel build. Run the same tagged commit on both Macs and diff the resulting IPA/XCArchive before cutting over. A failing build is not a benchmark — require green on both sides.
11. Remove the Flow Swiss allocation once parity is confirmed. Time the removal to the end of a 24-hour block to avoid an extra day.

Choose the Figment plan

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