Figment vs ICYNET: Mac Hosting Compared 2026

If you want the short answer: for Apple silicon work moving off ICYNET, pick Figment's M-series Mac from $95/month USD — request-based, with the exact chip, RAM and disk confirmed in the quote. For Intel-compatible toolchains on a low monthly spend, pick Figment's $29/month virtual Intel macOS instance (2 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM, 80 GiB disk, Linux/KVM, browser-console access; no GPU acceleration or audio, and it is not an Apple silicon Mac). ICYNET publishes rentals in Canadian dollars with taxes extra from a dedicated facility in Calgary, Alberta. The two providers price in different currencies and sell different units of compute, so compare in a single currency on the exact hardware actually quoted.

What Each Provider Publishes

ICYNET (icynet.ca/macs) rents one physical Mac mini "dedicated to you, not virtualised, not shared," with a full administrative account on the machine. The public page lists billing in CAD with taxes extra and contract lengths of 1, 3, 6 or 12 months at the same monthly rate. ICYNET's home page states candidly that the company is early in Mac hosting and does not publish customer counts or uptime figures. No SLA percentage, setup fee or minimum beyond the one-month term was published on the pages we checked.

The /macs page uses an interactive selector that did not render prices in our plain HTTP fetch, so we rely on provider research dated 2026-11-10: CAD $149/month for an M4 / 16 GB / 256 GB mini, with ICYNET's own note that a quoted price does not by itself confirm stock or service availability. Confirm the live price on the selector before committing to a term.

Figment's monthly USD line:

Physical Intel and M-series plans currently collect requests until supply is confirmed. Agree an evaluation window with Figment before purchase instead of assuming a free trial — one is not offered.

CAD vs USD: A Worked Worksheet You Can Fill In

Published rates are in different currencies, so convert before comparing. Use a same-day reference rate from the Bank of Canada daily exchange rates — the primary Canadian source — and remember that your card or bank will add a spread on top. Keep the currency and reference date beside every converted amount.

Fill in today's rate R (USD per CAD) and compute in sequence:

• ICYNET M4 / 16 / 256 at CAD $149/mo → 149 × R USD per month, pre-tax.
• ICYNET 12 months at same rate → CAD $1,788 → 1788 × R USD, pre-tax. Add Alberta GST at 5% for in-province billing (confirm your tax treatment with ICYNET; cross-border customers differ).
• Figment M-series entry at USD $95/mo → USD $1,140 across 12 months at the entry tier.
• Figment Managed Build Mac at USD $249/mo → USD $2,988 across 12 months, which includes CI setup, backups, monitoring and 30 minutes of monthly support — work ICYNET does not include at its listed price.

We do not quote a single CAD/USD number because the correct answer depends on the day you buy; plug in today's Bank of Canada rate and your own tax rate. Do not treat the $95 Figment entry as an M4 equivalent — it is a lower entry price, not confirmed equal hardware. Ask for the specific chip, memory and disk in writing before signing a term.

Hardware, Access and Toolchain Fit

ICYNET's catalog is Apple silicon minis; Figment's $95 tier is also Apple silicon, with the M-series chip confirmed in the quote. Figment's $29 VM and $49 i3 Mac target Intel-compatible toolchains.

Per Apple's Xcode system requirements checked on 2026-11-10, Xcode 27.x requires macOS Tahoe 26.6 or later; Xcode 26.4.1 and newer 26.x require macOS Tahoe 26.2 or later; Xcode 26.0–26.3 require macOS Sequoia 15.6 or later; Xcode 16.4 covers Sequoia 15.3 through Tahoe 26.1.x. Apple's porting-to-Apple-silicon guidance adds that Xcode 27 does not run on Intel; Xcode 26 and earlier do, on compatible macOS releases — Apple's own support list for macOS Tahoe includes several 2019/2020 Intel Macs, so "Tahoe" does not automatically mean "Apple silicon only." visionOS targets require a Mac with Apple silicon. Verify the exact Xcode/macOS pair for your project rather than collapsing it into one row.

Access boundaries, stated once so you can plan around them:

• ICYNET grants a full administrator account on its dedicated minis; the specific remote-access protocol (VNC, Screen Sharing, SSH) is set at provisioning, so name what your CI runner or signing workflow needs when you request.
• Figment's $29 VM is reached through a browser desktop and console. Commands run in that desktop terminal, and outbound CI agents from the VM can connect to your pipeline. Inbound public SSH to the $29 VM is not part of that plan.
• Figment's physical M-series and i3 configuration details (admin level, remote protocol, OS image) are confirmed in the quote, not published on the plan page.

Canadian data residency and low Calgary-to-Canadian-office latency are legitimate reasons to prefer ICYNET. US-dollar budgeting, Figment's managed CI line or Intel coverage on the $29 VM are legitimate reasons to prefer Figment.

A Buyer Test You Can Run Before You Switch

Neither page we checked publishes an independent build-time benchmark for the configurations you are comparing, and ICYNET explicitly declines to publish uptime figures at this stage. Treat absence as absence rather than as a reliability signal either way. The useful move is to measure what matters on your project, on the exact machine quoted.

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Three clean builds of YOUR project on a candidate machine, logged to CSV.
# Usage: ./bench.sh /path/to/YourApp.xcodeproj YourSchemeName "generic/platform=iOS Simulator"
set -euo pipefail
PROJ="${1:?path to your .xcodeproj}"
SCHEME="${2:?your Xcode scheme name}"
DEST="${3:-generic/platform=iOS Simulator}"

printf 'machine,run,wallclock_seconds\n' > bench.csv
for run in 1 2 3; do
  echo "=== Run $run: clean build $SCHEME on $(hostname) ==="
  START=$(date +%s)
  xcodebuild \
    -project "$PROJ" \
    -scheme "$SCHEME" \
    -destination "$DEST" \
    clean build
  END=$(date +%s)
  printf '%s,%s,%s\n' "$(hostname)" "$run" "$((END-START))" >> bench.csv
done

set -euo pipefail stops the run on the first failure, so only successful builds contribute to the three timings written to bench.csv. Run it on an ICYNET machine and on your Figment evaluation machine with identical inputs, then compare averages. This is a template for your own project, not a benchmark result.

ICYNET → Figment Migration Checklist

On the ICYNET machine, before the term ends:

• In Keychain Access, right-click each signing certificate and export as an encrypted .p12; store the passphrase in your password manager, not beside the file.
• Copy provisioning profiles from ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/*.mobileprovision to secure storage — these are files on disk, not Keychain items.
• Write a list of the names of secrets you use (API keys, App Store Connect key IDs, notarisation credentials). Restore the values through your team's secret manager on the new host. Do not export environment variables to a plaintext file.
• Push Fastfile, Matchfile, Gymfile and any CI config to version control.
• Record the ICYNET machine's hostname, timezone, launchd/cron jobs and any local firewall rules keyed on its hostname.
• Update any firewall, artifact store or CI service allowlists you control that reference the ICYNET machine's IP. Do not assume App Store Connect or TestFlight publish an IP allowlist you need to maintain.
• Ask ICYNET in writing about the data-retention window after the term ends; it was not stated on the pages we checked.

On the new Figment M-series Mac:

• Confirm the macOS release matches the Xcode minor release you need, using Apple's requirements page linked above.
• Install Xcode from the App Store or developer.apple.com for the exact version — do not copy the .app bundle between providers.
• Import .p12 certificates into Keychain Access; copy provisioning profiles into ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/.
• Restore secret values through your secret manager and verify the CI job can read them.
• Run the build test above with identical inputs and compare three-run averages against your ICYNET baseline.
• Update DNS, pipeline runners and any internal references to the new hostname.

Choose the Figment Plan

Submit a configuration request at /mac-hosting/start and the Figment team will confirm the exact hardware, term and any fees for the plan that fits your project. Related reading: Figment vs IPHOST, Figment vs JUUZ Cloud and Hourly vs Monthly Mac Rentals.