Figment vs Hatmac: Mac Hosting Compared in 2026

Hatmac rents a dedicated Apple M4 Mac Mini with 16 GB unified memory and a 256 GB SSD. Published rates on hatmac.com/mac-mini-m4-rental/ are $149/month rolling, $139/month on a 6-month term, and $119/month on a 12-month term. Figment's M-series rental starts at $95/month in USD; the exact chip generation, RAM and storage are confirmed in your configuration quote. Both providers price in USD, so the entry-price gap is clean — but the Figment entry is not a confirmed M4/16GB match, and that is the main thing to weigh.

Verdict and the Figment plan to pick

Figment's M-series entry at $95/month is lower than every Hatmac rate: $149 rolling, $139 on 6 months, $119 on 12 months. That is an entry-price comparison, not a hardware-equal one. Hatmac's rates buy a specific M4/16GB/256GB machine; Figment's $95 covers an unspecified M-series configuration you confirm in the quote. If your build pipeline needs a documented M4 with 16 GB of RAM, ask Figment to quote that exact spec and compare the two prices after the quote comes back.

If you want operational coverage Hatmac does not publish, the Figment Managed Build Mac at $249/month bundles one M-series Mac with CI pipeline setup, backups, monitoring, and 30 minutes of hands-on support each month. For two parallel runners, Managed Mac Team at $999/month covers two M-series Macs, two CI runners, team setup, backups, monitoring and one hour of monthly support.

For a cheap pre-commit test of CI scripts, the Figment virtual Intel macOS VM at $29/month (2 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM, 80 GiB disk) runs on Linux/KVM. It runs compatible Intel Mac toolchains, including the Intel-supported Xcode 15.x line and earlier — enough to validate shell scripts, fastlane lanes and xcodebuild invocations. It has no GPU acceleration, no audio, and cannot run Xcode 16 or later (Apple silicon only). Access is through its browser desktop console, not inbound SSH. See Apple's Xcode system requirements for the exact version-to-macOS pairing before you pick.

Request a Figment quote at /mac-hosting/start.

Term-by-term cost comparison

Hatmac publishes three rates on its M4 page; Figment publishes a monthly entry price and asks you to confirm term in the quote.

Hatmac's 12-month commitment saves $360 against staying rolling monthly for the same year (12 × $149 = $1,788; $1,788 − $1,428 = $360). The 6-month term saves $60 against six months of rolling ($894 − $834 = $60). No setup fee is listed on the Hatmac M4 page, and no annual prepayment discount beyond the $119/month rate is published. Hatmac accepts card via Stripe, PayPal, BTC and USDT; every checkout is in USD.

Entry-price difference: Figment's $95/month versus Hatmac's $149 rolling is a $54/month nominal gap; versus Hatmac's $119 12-month rate it is $24/month. Both differences are valid only if the Figment quote lands at an equivalent chip and RAM. Tax and fees are whatever your actual offer and payment method state.

Hardware, access and toolchain fit

Hatmac confirms a dedicated physical machine per customer, M4 chip, 16 GB unified memory, 256 GB SSD, with extra storage available on request (pricing not published). Access options listed on the M4 page include SSH, Screen Sharing (VNC), AnyDesk, RustDesk, Parsec and Chrome Remote Desktop, "depending on what we configure for your Mac." Provisioning is documented as 24 to 72 hours after payment confirmation. No uptime SLA is published on the pages we checked.

Figment M-series hardware is Apple silicon; the chip, RAM, storage and access method are confirmed in the quote. Request a specific chip/RAM target in the quote if your build needs it. Figment's $29 VM is accessed through its browser console; inbound public SSH is not currently offered on the VM, though outbound CI agents from the VM can connect to your CI service.

For toolchain, Apple's current Xcode system requirements page lists the macOS minimum per Xcode release. Current Xcode 26.x and Xcode 27.x releases require Apple silicon; both Hatmac's M4 and a Figment M-series Mac can run them, but the specific macOS version required varies by Xcode point release — check the exact pair on Apple's page. Xcode 15.x is the last line that ran on Intel; later majors are Apple silicon only. The visionOS simulator requires Apple silicon.

Performance and reliability: what to measure yourself

Neither Hatmac's pages nor Figment's plan details publish a build-time benchmark or an uptime SLA we could verify, so do not treat marketing adjectives as evidence from either side. The only comparison that matters for your workload is a timed clean build on your own project, on each candidate machine.

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Run on each candidate Mac. Substitute your real project, scheme and destination.
# This is an unexecuted example, not a benchmark result.
set -euo pipefail

PROJECT="YourProject.xcodeproj"
SCHEME="YourSchemeName"
DESTINATION="platform=iOS Simulator,name=iPhone 16"

echo "=== Clean build started $(date -u +%FT%TZ) ==="
time xcodebuild \
  -project "$PROJECT" \
  -scheme "$SCHEME" \
  -destination "$DESTINATION" \
  clean build
# set -e aborts the script if xcodebuild exits non-zero,
# so the success line below only prints on a real green build.
echo "=== Clean build succeeded — record the wall-clock time above ==="

Run three times on each machine. Record the median of the runs that reach the success line. A failed build is not a fast build; discard it.

Migration steps: Hatmac to Figment

Before provisioning Figment

• Request a configuration quote at /mac-hosting/start with the minimum chip generation, RAM and disk you need. Confirm the hardware offered at the quoted price.
• Note your Hatmac billing anchor. If you are inside a 6- or 12-month term, plan the cutover so you do not pay two machines longer than needed.
• Write down the names of every CI secret — signing identities, API key names, service tokens, webhook secrets. Names only, never values in plain text.

Export from the current Hatmac Mac

• From Keychain Access, export each signing certificate together with its private key as an encrypted .p12. Store the export password in your team's secret manager, not in a repo or shell export.
• Download provisioning profiles as .mobileprovision files from the Apple Developer portal. Do not try to extract profiles from Keychain.
• Commit CI definitions (.yml, Fastfile, build scripts) in your repository if they are not already there.
• Archive any derived data or caches you want to preserve; most teams rebuild instead.

Restore on the Figment Mac

• Install the Xcode release your project targets before you import credentials. Match the Hatmac version so a failure is clearly environmental, not a toolchain change.
• Double-click each .p12 to import into the login keychain with its export password.
• Copy .mobileprovision files into ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/.
• Inject secret values from your CI vault or secret manager at job runtime. Do not write the Hatmac shell environment to disk as plain text.
• Run a clean build and confirm signing completes without errors.
• If your own firewall, artifact store or CI service allowlists the current Hatmac egress IP, add the Figment machine's address there. Figment does not publish allowlists for Apple services; rely on normal outbound HTTPS.

After cutover

• Run the full test suite on Figment before you release the Hatmac machine.
• Cancel or let the Hatmac term expire per the billing terms on hatmac.com.

Choose your Figment plan

Hatmac's offer is a clearly specified M4/16GB/256GB machine at a published rate with flexible payment. Figment's entry is cheaper and the managed tiers add CI setup, backups, monitoring and support that Hatmac does not publish. If chip generation matters for your builds, put it in the Figment quote request so the comparison is apples to apples. Start at /mac-hosting/start.

Related reading:

• Figment vs Honds IT
• Figment vs HostMyServers
• Short-project Mac rental: what to look for