Figment vs Summit: Mac Hosting Compared in 2026

Verdict: pick Figment for a hosted build Mac, Summit for colocation

If you need a ready-to-build Apple silicon Mac for CI without owning or racking hardware, go with Figment's M-series from $95/month or the Managed Build Mac at $249/month (one M-series Mac, CI setup, backups, monitoring, and 30 minutes of monthly support). Start at /mac-hosting/start.

If instead you want to colocate hardware you already own, or need a provider with 24/7 Remote Hands inside a datacenter, Summit's Mac Hosting is built around that model: Summit-provided Apple silicon Macs start at $169/unit/month, and Bring-Your-Own-Mac colocation starts at $50/unit/month (volume: 10 Mac minis from $285/month total).

Both are direct competitors for a developer who just wants a Mac in the cloud. The useful question is what you need beyond the headline price.

Published plan and effective cost

Prices and inclusions as listed on each vendor's pricing page on 2026-11-10 (Summit; Figment plans on /mac-hosting).

Twelve months of a single Summit $169 unit is $2,028; twelve months of Figment's $95 M-series entry is $1,140. That is an entry-price gap of $888/year — but the two tiers are not spec-matched. Summit's $169 tier is built on current M4-class silicon; Figment's $95 is the M-series starting price with the exact chip, RAM and disk confirmed on your quote. Treat it as an entry-cost comparison and confirm specs before committing.

Summit's page lists monthly billing and does not publish an annual term or a setup fee; tax and fees apply as stated in the actual Summit order. Figment's physical M-series and i3 plans currently collect requests until supply is confirmed, so ask for specs, delivery and any term pricing in the quote.

Hardware, access and toolchain fit

Summit lists Mac mini (M4, M4 Pro), Mac Studio (M4 Max, M3 Ultra), and Mac Pro (M2 Ultra), with M5/M6 variants marked coming soon. All are Apple silicon and cover current Xcode. Per Apple's Xcode system requirements and Apple's guide to porting macOS apps to Apple silicon, Xcode 27 is Apple-silicon-only; Intel-compatible builds should use Xcode 26 or an earlier release as noted by Apple. visionOS development requires Apple silicon.

Figment's M-series plans are also Apple silicon; the Managed Build Mac is one M-series Mac with the CI stack set up by Figment. Figment's $29 virtual Intel macOS is a real macOS environment running on Linux/KVM — not an SSH jump to another Mac. It runs compatible Intel Mac toolchains, including supported Xcode 26-or-earlier versions, which can cross-compile and sign universal or arm64 targets Apple's docs allow from Intel hosts. It is Intel, so it cannot execute Apple silicon-only binaries, has no GPU acceleration and no audio. Pick an M-series plan when you need native ARM execution, Xcode 27, visionOS, GPU work, or more RAM and concurrency.

Access on the $29 VM is through the browser console; outbound agents (GitHub Actions, GitLab, Buildkite) can connect to your CI service. On Summit, Summit-provided Macs come pre-imaged on a private VLAN with 1 or 10 GbE and Thunderbolt 4/5 interconnects between machines in the same rack — relevant if you move large caches between build hosts.

Service-level decision matrix

Summit's page does not publish an uptime SLA percentage. Do not read that as an absence of one — ask Summit for the SLA, response times and remedies in writing. Likewise, Summit does not detail managed CI setup on this page; if you need the pipeline installed and maintained for you, that is specifically what Figment's Managed Build Mac buys.

A small worked cost example

Say you run one CI Mac today, you need Apple silicon for Xcode 27, and you also want someone to maintain the runner, back it up and be reachable 30 minutes/month.

• Summit $169/unit/month × 12 = $2,028/year for hardware + Remote Hands. Managed CI work is your team's responsibility (or a third party's).
• Figment Managed Build Mac $249/month × 12 = $2,988/year including the CI setup, backups, monitoring and 30 min/month support.
• Delta: $960/year for the managed CI inclusions vs doing them yourself.

If your team already maintains runners and you just need colocated or hosted hardware, Summit's $169 tier is the cheaper line item. If "someone else owns the pipeline" is worth roughly $80/month to you, Figment's $249 is the better buy. Figment's unmanaged M-series from $95 is the closest apples-to-apples with Summit's $169 on entry price (confirm matched chip/RAM/disk in the quote before treating them as equivalent).

Run your own build-time comparison

Before switching, time a clean build of your project on both machines. Use your real scheme name — do not invent one — and let the script fail loudly so a broken build is never counted as a fast one.

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Usage: ./time-build.sh /path/to/YourApp.xcodeproj YourSchemeName
# Adjust -destination for your target (e.g. 'generic/platform=iOS').
set -euo pipefail

PROJECT="${1:?Provide path to .xcodeproj}"
SCHEME="${2:?Provide scheme name}"

echo "Host: $(hostname)  Started: $(date -u +%FT%TZ)"
START=$(date +%s)

xcodebuild \
  -project "$PROJECT" \
  -scheme "$SCHEME" \
  -configuration Release \
  -destination 'platform=macOS' \
  clean build

END=$(date +%s)
echo "Build OK in $((END - START))s on $(hostname)"

Record wall-clock time, memory pressure and any thermal throttling on each host. This is an example script, not a benchmark result.

Migration from Summit to Figment

Summit machines sit on a private VLAN; a Figment Mac does not. Plan the network and secret moves before the cutover.

On the Summit machine

• Inventory tools: brew list --versions > tools-$(date +%Y%m%d).txt and commit to your dotfiles repo. Do not capture env values.
• Export each signing identity as an encrypted .p12 via Keychain Access (My Certificates → Export → .p12, strong passphrase stored in your password manager, separate from the file).
• Copy provisioning profile files from ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/ to secure storage. These are files, not keychain items.
• Record only the names of CI secrets and env vars. Pull the values from your existing secret manager on the new host.
• Commit CI YAML, Fastfiles and build scripts to version control.
• Note any Summit VLAN-only addresses, static IPs or internal services your build touches.

On the Figment machine

• Request a quote at /mac-hosting/start; physical M-series plans currently collect requests until supply is confirmed.
• Reinstall tools: xargs brew install < tools-*.txt.
• Import .p12 certificates into the login keychain; drop provisioning profiles back into ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/.
• Re-inject secret values from your secret manager into the CI job environment at run time.
• Update your own firewall, artifact store and CI service allowlists to accept the new runner's egress IP. Apple does not publish an App Store Connect allowlist; do not invent one.
• Run the timed build above to confirm a clean green build.

Cutover

• Run one release cycle in parallel on both machines.
• Switch CI runner registration, webhook targets and SSH configs to the Figment host.
• Confirm Summit's cancellation or hardware-return process before serving notice.

Choose the Figment plan

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

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