Figment vs snafu: Mac Hosting Compared in 2026

Direct verdict

snafu (snafu.de pricing) rents physical Apple-silicon Macs from Berlin with full root access, unlimited traffic, one IP, and a 99.90% uptime commitment. The entry plan is the Mac Mini M2 2023 at €99/month plus a €99 one-time setup, with a 4-week minimum term. All snafu prices exclude German VAT.

Figment competes directly as a US-based Mac host. The M-series physical plan starts from $95/month, with the exact chip, RAM and disk confirmed in the quote. If you want managed CI with setup, backups, monitoring and 30 minutes of monthly support included, choose Managed Build Mac at $249/month (one M-series Mac). For a cheap, always-on Intel toolchain target, the $29/month virtual Intel macOS environment (2 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM, 80 GiB disk) runs compatible Intel Xcode — it is a real macOS runtime, not a jump host.

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

Plan comparison and EUR/USD costs

All EUR/USD figures use the ECB reference rate 1 EUR = 1.1214 USD on 2026-11-10 (approximate, before card or bank fees).

snafu's chip, RAM and disk for each plan are published on its Mac server hosting page. Figment's $95 M-series entry is a lower starting price, not a verified M2/16 GB/512 GB equivalent — the exact specification is set in the quote. snafu physical plans ship on 4-week terms; Figment physical M-series and the i3 Mac at $49/month collect requests until supply is confirmed.

Setup-fee amortization on the snafu M2

snafu's €99 setup is a one-time charge, so your effective monthly cost drops the longer you stay. This matters when comparing to providers without a setup fee.

At 12 months the M2 is about €107.25/month (≈ $120). Figment's M-series starts at $95/month — roughly $25/month cheaper at the entry price — but Figment's $95 entry is not a confirmed M2/16 GB/512 GB match. Compare only after your Figment quote lands. Taxes, fees and currency conversion are as stated in each provider's actual offer; snafu lists all prices net of German VAT.

Hardware, access and toolchain fit

snafu publishes full root access, a 1000 Mbit/s uplink, one IP included (extra IPs €2.50/month), optional NAS (€99 setup, €49/month) and USB storage. Payment options include PayPal, card and SEPA. The Berlin data centre is ISO/IEC 27001:2015 certified.

Figment's M-series machines are provisioned on request; confirm the macOS version, admin access and inbound SSH in your quote. On the $29 Intel VM the verified access path is the browser console; outbound CI agents (GitHub Actions self-hosted, Buildkite, CircleCI) can register from the VM to your service.

Xcode and macOS minimums, verified on Apple's system requirements page on 2026-11-10:

snafu's M2, M5 Pro and M5 Max are all Apple silicon and cover Xcode 27 and visionOS work. Figment's physical M-series does the same once provisioned. The Figment Intel VM targets Intel Xcode 26-or-earlier workflows: it can cross-compile and sign arm64 device apps and universal macOS binaries; what it cannot do is execute ARM-only binaries or run Xcode 27. Choose M-series when you need ARM execution, GPU acceleration, or Xcode 27.

EU vs US considerations

• Latency. EU-based CI clients will see lower round-trip times to Berlin than to a US region. Measure from your actual runner, not from a laptop.
• Data jurisdiction. snafu's Berlin site is inside the EU; Figment runs from US data centres. If your contract or customers require EU data residency, factor that into the decision rather than the per-month price.
• Certifications. snafu's data centre is ISO/IEC 27001:2015 certified. Figment's certification status is not verified in the sources checked for this article; ask in the quote if you need a specific framework.
• VAT and fees. snafu's listed prices are net of German VAT; your applicable VAT and any card/FX fees come from your own invoice, not from this article.

snafu-to-Figment migration checklist

A pragmatic worksheet. Nothing here assumes a specific Figment image until your quote is confirmed.

• Watch the 4-week cycle. snafu's minimum term is short, but cancelling mid-cycle can still invoice a full period. Line up Figment delivery before you cancel.
• Archive project trees from snafu. On the snafu Mac: tar -czf build_archive_$(date -u +%Y%m%dT%H%M%SZ).tar.gz ~/projects then copy via scp using the root account snafu provides.
• Export signing certificates as encrypted .p12. In Keychain Access → My Certificates, export each Developer ID / Apple Distribution identity, set a strong passphrase, and move the .p12 and passphrase through separate channels (secret manager for the passphrase, artifact store for the file). Developer ID Application and Developer ID Installer are different; export each one you actually use.
• Download provisioning profiles from Apple Developer. Profiles are .mobileprovision / .provisionprofile files downloaded from Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles. They are not keychain items; do not try to import them into Keychain.
• Transfer secret names, not values. List the environment variable names your pipeline consumes and recreate values in the CI service's secret store or your own secret manager. Never dump env to a file — it captures tokens and keys.
• Re-register CI agents. Deregister self-hosted GitHub Actions runners, Buildkite agents or CircleCI runners on the snafu machine, then register fresh on the Figment host. Follow GitHub's hardening for self-hosted runners.
• Update your own allowlists. If your artifact store, deployment target, or notification service restricts by source IP, add the Figment host. Apple does not publish a TestFlight or App Store Connect IP allowlist to pin.
• Run a real clean build on the new host. Use your project and its real scheme. Start the script with set -euo pipefail so a failed build exits non-zero and never gets counted as a fast run.
• Test the TestFlight upload path. Upload a signed build with Transporter, xcodebuild -exportArchive + the App Store Connect upload step, or Fastlane pilot. Notarytool is for macOS notarization, not iOS TestFlight uploads.

Choosing your Figment plan

Confirm the macOS version, access method and hardware in the quote. Start at /mac-hosting/start, or read the main product page at /mac-hosting.

Related:

• Figment vs vBoxx: Mac Hosting Compared in 2026
• Figment vs xaweho: Mac Hosting Compared in 2026
• CI minutes or a dedicated Mac: which model fits?