Figment vs MacStadium: Mac Hosting Compared

Verdict: Figment starts $14/month lower on M-series entry

If you are shopping MacStadium, the direct answer: Figment's M-series Mac starts at $95/month as an entry price, with the exact chip, RAM, disk and access method set in the quote. MacStadium's entry M2.S Mac mini is $109/month (M2 8-core, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD) with monthly pre-payment (MacStadium pricing). That is a $14/month entry-price gap, not a matched-spec price match.

MacStadium publishes the chip at every rung: M4.S at $149/month (M4 10-core, 16 GB, 256 GB), M4.M at $249/month (M4 10-core, 24 GB, 512 GB), through Mac Studio M2 Ultra at $449/month. Figment does not publish a specific M4 price point, so treat $95 as a starting line and confirm the chip you need at quote time.

Where list prices meet is the managed tier. MacStadium's M4.M is $249/month for one dedicated Mac mini on its network with a published 99.99% uptime target. Figment's Managed Build Mac is also $249/month and bundles one M-series Mac with CI setup, backups, monitoring, and 30 minutes of monthly support. If an engineer would otherwise configure your CI, that labor is the real line item to weigh against the Managed Build Mac inclusions — not the hardware list price alone.

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Published plans and effective cost

Prices and specs come from MacStadium's pricing page. Figment plans are the current retail offers.

MacStadium's FAQ cites a 99.99% uptime target; we have not verified a published Figment SLA. Compare on evidence you can measure (see the worksheet below) rather than on uptime marketing either way.

Hardware, access and toolchain fit

MacStadium lists the chip, RAM and SSD on every SKU, from Mac mini M2.S through Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128 GB. Each plan is one Mac per customer on MacStadium's network.

Figment's physical plans (i3 at $49/month, M-series from $95/month) are request-based; confirm the exact chip, RAM, disk, macOS image and access method in the quote rather than assuming a particular configuration. The $29 virtual Intel macOS is a Linux/KVM instance with 2 shared vCPUs, 8 GiB RAM and 80 GiB disk, reached through its browser console; commands run in its desktop terminal, and outbound CI agents can connect to your service. It executes compatible Intel Mac toolchains — including Xcode versions Apple still lists as Intel-compatible — so it is a working Intel environment for Fastlane, xcodebuild, signing and archive export. It has no GPU acceleration and no audio, and it is not Apple silicon.

Xcode and macOS, verified against Apple's current docs:

• Xcode 27 is Apple-silicon-only by its own requirements; use Xcode 26 or earlier on Intel, as Apple states in Porting your macOS apps to Apple silicon.
• macOS Tahoe 26 supports some Intel Macs, including the listed 2019–2020 MacBook Pro, iMac 2020 and Mac Pro 2019 models.
• visionOS SDK requires Apple silicon on either provider.
• Point releases differ, so confirm your exact Xcode/macOS pair in Apple's current release notes before you commit to a plan.

If you need an ARM toolchain, GPU-accelerated simulators or visionOS, pick an M-series Mac on either provider. If your pipeline is purely Intel Fastlane or xcodebuild, the $29 VM is the cheapest working option in this comparison.

Migration plan and payback worksheet

Use your real numbers, not a generic benchmark:

Inputs
  A = MacStadium monthly on your current plan           e.g. $109 (M2.S)
  B = Figment monthly quote for the chip you need       e.g. $95  (entry)
  O = Overlap months you run both to validate           e.g. 1
  E = Engineer hours to redo CI * loaded hourly rate    e.g. 6h * $120 = $720

Monthly delta       D = A - B                             = $14
Transition cost     T = (A * O) + E                       = $109 + $720 = $829
Payback in months   P = T / D                             = $829 / $14 ≈ 59.21

If CI configuration ports cleanly and E = 0:
  P = $109 / $14 ≈ 7.79 months

If P is longer than your planning horizon, do not move on price alone — decide on managed inclusions or the chip you need. Managed Build Mac at $249/month is the direct comparison against M4.M at $249/month plus the engineer time to configure CI on your side.

Switch steps

• Provision Figment first. Run a full signed pipeline — including a TestFlight upload — for five business days before you cut over.
• From MacStadium, export signing certificates with their private keys to an encrypted .p12 via Keychain Access → File → Export Items. Copy provisioning profiles as files from ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/; they are files on disk, not Keychain items.
• Save CI configuration files (.github/workflows/*.yml, Fastfile, Gymfile, Matchfile). Record only the names of required environment variables — never dump env to a plaintext file, since it can contain live tokens. Restore values from your team's secret manager by name.
• Snapshot Homebrew state: brew list --formula > brew.txt && brew list --cask > casks.txt, then replay on the new host.
• Update only the allow-lists you actually control (your firewall, artifact store, VPN, self-hosted webhook receivers) to the new host IP.
• Cancel MacStadium before the next billing month; it bills monthly in advance.

Pick the Figment plan

View Figment Mac plans → · Start your Figment Mac →

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