Figment vs Orbit: Mac Hosting Compared in 2026

If you want a hosted Mac for iOS and macOS builds and you are weighing Orbit against a flat monthly bill, the direct answer is: Figment's M-series Mac starts at $95/month USD (mac-hosting), which is less than Orbit's 30‑day rate of 150 credits (€150, about $168 at today's ECB reference 1 EUR = 1.1214 USD) on a Mac mini M4 (orbit.equipment/pricing). Figment's physical M-series plans collect requests until supply is confirmed; the exact chip, RAM, and storage are agreed in the quote, so a $95 Figment entry is a lower entry price — not a verified M4/16 GB match. If you only need a Mac for a few days a month, Orbit's daily 25‑credit rate can beat Figment's flat month. Start a Figment configuration at /mac-hosting/start.

Effective 30-Day Cost: Orbit Credits vs Figment Monthly

Orbit bills every Mac mini M4 workstation in EUR using credits. The base Fluid Exchange rate is €1 per credit; a 30‑day session costs 150 credits; packs give small credit bonuses. The pack math and the Figment line below:

Arithmetic: €290 ÷ 299 × 150 = €145.48; €1,900 ÷ 2,052 × 150 = €138.89; €3,900 ÷ 4,368 × 150 = €133.93. USD conversions use the ECB reference rate 1 EUR = 1.1214 USD on 2026-11-10 and exclude card/bank fees. Both prices above are the headline rate; Orbit's pricing page does not publish a setup fee or an annual prepayment option, and Figment does not publish a verified annual prepayment discount either — check both at order time.

A full year at the Figment headline is 12 × $95 = $1,140. Twelve 30‑day Orbit sessions on the Fluid Exchange are 12 × €150 = €1,800 ($2,019), and on the SuperPro pack 12 × €133.93 = €1,607 ($1,802). Credits never expire, so unused pack credits roll into future months.

Orbit's daily rate is 25 credits (€25, ~$28), weekly 75 credits (€75, ~$84). For a project under about four days a month, the Orbit daily rate is cheaper than Figment's $95 flat charge; past roughly 8–10 days it is not. Pick on expected usage, not on the list price alone.

Hardware, Remote Access, and Terms

Orbit provides dedicated Mac mini M4 workstations accessed via AnyDesk, with no subscription and no minimum commitment — you pay credits when you launch a workstation (orbit.equipment/pricing). The published page does not state admin level, SLA, or setup fee; confirm each with Orbit before relying on it.

Figment's M-series plans use physical Apple silicon hardware; the exact chip, RAM, storage, and access method are confirmed when you request a quote. Figment also offers two managed tiers, defined exactly:

• Managed Build Mac — $249/month: one M-series Mac, CI setup, backups, monitoring, 30 minutes monthly support.
• Managed Mac Team — $999/month: two M-series Macs, two CI runners, team setup, backups, monitoring, one hour monthly support.
• Enterprise: fleet quotes, subject to stated capacity and delivery.

For a lower entry point without a physical Mac, Figment also sells a $29/month virtual Intel macOS environment (2 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM, 80 GiB disk) that runs compatible Intel Mac toolchains and real macOS commands — it is not just an SSH jump host to a separate Mac. It has no GPU acceleration and no audio, and today's access path is the browser console; outbound CI agents on the VM can reach your CI service. A physical Intel i3 at $49/month is request-based until supply is confirmed.

Xcode and Toolchain Fit

Orbit's Mac mini M4 is Apple silicon, so any current Xcode runs on it. For Figment, pick by target:

• M-series Mac (from $95): runs Xcode 26.x and Xcode 27.x within Apple's published macOS pairings (Apple Xcode system requirements). Required for visionOS and for anything that must execute on ARM.
• $29 virtual Intel macOS: supports Xcode 26 or earlier on Intel per Apple's porting guidance; Xcode 27 is Apple‑silicon‑only. Compatible Intel Xcode can build and sign supported iOS/macOS targets; check the exact Xcode/macOS row before locking a version.
• Intel i3 ($49, request-based): same Intel toolchain window; useful for legacy Intel builds, not for ARM execution or visionOS.

If any part of your pipeline needs the newest SDKs or ARM execution, use an M-series Mac. Keep Apple's developer program and license terms separate from the technical question of what the host can run.

A Short, Honest Benchmark

Neither provider publishes an independently verified build benchmark, and Figment does not claim one. Time your own project on each host during an evaluation session. Replace the scheme and workspace with values from your project — do not invent them:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail

SCHEME="${SCHEME:?set to your real scheme}"
WORKSPACE="${WORKSPACE:?set to your .xcworkspace or use -project}"
DESTINATION="${DESTINATION:-platform=iOS Simulator,name=iPhone 16}"

start=$(date +%s)
xcodebuild clean build \
  -workspace "$WORKSPACE" \
  -scheme "$SCHEME" \
  -destination "$DESTINATION" \
  -configuration Release
status=$?
end=$(date +%s)

if [[ $status -eq 0 ]]; then
  echo "OK build seconds=$((end-start))"
else
  echo "FAIL exit=$status"; exit $status
fi

The wall-clock figure only counts if the build succeeded. set -euo pipefail plus the explicit exit means a failed build is not reported as a timing result.

Migrating from Orbit to Figment

Orbit credits never expire, so there is no deadline. Work through these in order:

1. Note your credit balance. Keep it for parallel testing or future bursts; do not let a balance dictate your timing.
2. Move project data off the workstation. From AnyDesk, push your working trees to git and any build artefacts to your object store. Do not rely on the Orbit workstation for retention.
3. Export signing material safely. From Keychain Access, export each distribution identity with its private key as an encrypted .p12; download provisioning profiles as .mobileprovision files from the Apple Developer site. Keep the .p12 passphrase in your secret manager and transfer the list of secret names separately — never paste raw values into shell history or a plain env file.
4. Request the Figment machine. At /mac-hosting/start describe target SDKs, concurrency, and timeline; Figment confirms chip, RAM, disk, access method, and lead time in the quote.
5. Provision and dry‑run. Install the exact Xcode row you target, import the .p12 into a dedicated keychain (not the login keychain), drop profiles into ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/, and run a full clean build.
6. Update your own allowlists. If your git host, artefact store, or CI service restricts by IP, add the Figment host's address to those customer-controlled allowlists. Do not add rules to Apple services that do not publish an allowlist.
7. Run in parallel. Spend remaining Orbit credits on parallel builds while Figment carries production CI. Compare timing and output on real commits, not synthetic ones.
8. End the Orbit session. Close AnyDesk when Figment is stable. Remaining credits stay in your Orbit account.

Which Figment Plan Fits

Start a configuration at /mac-hosting/start or compare plans at /mac-hosting.

Related reading

• Figment vs QuickServers: Mac Hosting Compared
• Figment vs RUVCLOUD: Mac Hosting Compared
• Managed Build Mac or Managed Team: Which Plan Fits?

Primary sources checked 2026-11-10: orbit.equipment/pricing; Apple Xcode system requirements; ECB EUR/USD reference rate.