Figment vs ZavCloud: Mac Hosting Compared

If you are weighing ZavCloud against Figment, the short answer: ZavCloud advertises its M4 16 GB / 256 GB Mac mini "from $99.3/mo", and Figment's M-series starts at $95/month, with the exact chip generation, RAM, and disk confirmed at quote. If you also want CI setup, backups, and monitoring handled for you, Figment's Managed Build Mac at $249/month is the plan to compare — ZavCloud sells the machine; Figment can sell the machine plus the managed CI work.

Figment competes directly in this market. Physical M-series machines are provisioned on request today while supply is confirmed, so start a quote at /mac-hosting/start before you plan a cutover date.

Published Plans, Pricing, and Billing Terms

ZavCloud's two public Mac mini tiers, from the ZavCloud homepage:

Both tiers include a dedicated IPv4 and up to 1 Gbps bandwidth, in regions including Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, Seoul, and US East. ZavCloud does not publish exact daily, weekly, or quarterly rates on the plan cards we read; the "from" monthly figure and the per-cycle rate shown at checkout govern. No setup fee, annual prepayment price, or explicit uptime SLA is stated on the pages we checked — confirm these in ZavCloud's console before ordering.

Figment's comparable retail offers:

Entry-price vs equivalent hardware. Figment's $95 M-series "from" price is a lower entry point than ZavCloud's $99.30. It is not a guaranteed match for ZavCloud's specific M4 / 16 GB / 256 GB spec — Figment's chip generation, memory, and storage are set in the quote. Treat the $4.30/month gap as a lower entry cost, not an equal-hardware saving. If you need an M4 with 16 GB and 256 GB in writing before paying, ask for that in the Figment quote and compare line-for-line.

Hardware, Access, and Toolchain Fit

ZavCloud runs dedicated Mac mini M4 hardware, with access via VNC and SSH. Figment's M-series uses physical Apple hardware, with allocation confirmed on request at /mac-hosting/start; request your preferred region when you quote.

Figment also offers a $29/month virtual Intel macOS environment (2 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM, 80 GiB disk) with access through a browser console. It runs a real Intel macOS and can execute compatible Intel Mac toolchains, including supported Xcode 26 or earlier. Intel Xcode can cross-compile and sign arm64 device apps and universal macOS binaries; executing ARM-only binaries, Xcode 27, and visionOS development require Apple silicon. The VM has no GPU acceleration and no audio; inbound public SSH is not implemented — use the browser desktop terminal, and let your outbound CI agents connect to your CI service.

Xcode / macOS pairing, per Apple's Xcode system requirements:

Xcode 27 is Apple-silicon only, per Apple's porting guidance — see "Porting your macOS apps to Apple silicon". Some Intel Macs still run macOS Tahoe (Apple lists the MacBook Pro 2019/2020, iMac 2020 and Mac Pro 2019 on its Tahoe compatibility page), but Intel users should stay on Xcode 26 or earlier. Verify the exact Xcode/macOS pair at Apple's release table before you commit a build host.

If your pipeline targets Xcode 27 or visionOS, use ZavCloud's M4 or a Figment M-series. If you need a cheap Intel macOS host for Intel-toolchain work, Figment's $29 VM is the lowest option on this page.

A Short Worked Cost Sheet

ZavCloud M4 16 GB / 256 GB at $99.30/month × 12 months = $1,191.60/year at the published monthly rate (no annual-prepay discount is published on ZavCloud's plan page).

Figment M-series entry at $95/month × 12 = $1,140/year — an entry-price difference of $51.60/year vs ZavCloud's M4 16/256. This is entry pricing: Figment's exact chip, RAM, and disk at $95 are set in the quote and are not guaranteed to be M4 16/256. If Figment quotes a lower-spec chip, treat the gap as a lower entry cost; if Figment quotes an equivalent M4 16/256 at $95, that is a confirmed $51.60/year saving.

Managed Build Mac at $249/month × 12 = $2,988/year. Compare this to buying ZavCloud's machine plus staffing your own CI setup, backups, and monitoring — the $249 - $95 = $154/month delta is what you pay Figment for that managed CI work, not for faster silicon.

A Build-Time Test to Run Before You Switch

Rather than quoting unverified benchmarks, time a clean build of your own project on each provider. Run with your real project and scheme (do not invent scheme names):

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Time a clean release build. Run on ZavCloud, then on a Figment quote machine.
# Usage: ./time-build.sh /path/to/YourProject.xcodeproj YourSchemeName
set -euo pipefail

PROJECT="${1:?Pass the .xcodeproj path as arg 1}"
SCHEME="${2:?Pass the scheme name as arg 2}"

echo "host=$(hostname) date=$(date -u +%FT%TZ) xcode=$(xcodebuild -version | head -1)"
/usr/bin/time -p xcodebuild \
  -project "$PROJECT" \
  -scheme "$SCHEME" \
  -configuration Release \
  -destination 'generic/platform=iOS' \
  clean build \
  CODE_SIGNING_ALLOWED=NO

set -euo pipefail means a failed build exits non-zero and does not record a time; discard any run that fails. Keep the Xcode version, scheme, configuration, and destination identical on both hosts. Record three runs on each and compare medians. This is an example script; execute it against your project to produce your own numbers.

Switching from ZavCloud to Figment

Before you cancel ZavCloud

• Inventory running services and scheduled jobs on each instance (crontab -l, launchctl list, lsof -iTCP -sTCP:LISTEN).
• Export each signing identity from Keychain Access as an encrypted .p12 (File → Export Items → Personal Information Exchange, set a strong password). Do not export the whole keychain or write secrets into plaintext files or shell history.
• Copy provisioning profile files from ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/*.mobileprovision. (Profiles are files; they are not exported from Keychain.)
• List the names of required secrets and API tokens. Restore their values through your team's secret manager on the new host; do not dump the environment to a file.
• Capture pipeline configuration (Fastfile, Matchfile, .github/workflows/, Jenkinsfile, or equivalent).
• Note which ZavCloud region your instance lives in and request a matching or preferred region in your Figment quote.
• Confirm ZavCloud's cancellation or non-renewal steps in its console (not documented on the public pages we read).

On the Figment machine

• Request configuration at /mac-hosting/start: chip preference, RAM, storage, region.
• After provisioning, install the Xcode version your pipeline requires and verify the macOS version matches the row in the table above.
• Import the .p12 into a job-scoped keychain, add that keychain to the search list while preserving the existing list, and remove it on completion. Copy provisioning profiles back into ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles/.
• Restore secret values via your secret manager. Keep signing jobs limited to trusted code.
• Update any firewall, artifact store, or CI service allowlists you control with the new machine's IP — only where you actually use fixed-IP restrictions. There is no Apple App Store Connect IP allowlist to configure.
• Run the timing script above and the full test suite before decommissioning ZavCloud.

After cutover

• Keep ZavCloud running through at least one full release cycle on Figment, then terminate ZavCloud via its console.

Which Figment Plan Fits

If ZavCloud's M4 16/256 at $99.30 is doing the job and you just want a lower-cost machine with the same-class hardware, ask Figment to quote an M-series at $95 with the spec in writing, then compare. If what you actually want is to stop running CI yourself, the Managed Build Mac at $249 is the comparison that matters — not the raw machine price. Start the quote at /mac-hosting/start.

Related reading

• Figment vs ZoneMac: Mac Hosting Compared
• Figment vs Zumac.Ai: Mac Hosting Compared
• Buy or Rent a Mac? A Developer's Cost Comparison