Rent a Mac server

What a rented Mac server is for

People rent a macOS server when a job needs macOS and has to run without a person at the keyboard. These are the jobs we see most.

• CI builds and tests for iOS and macOS apps, on GitHub Actions, GitLab, Buildkite or Jenkins.
• Nightly and scheduled jobs, such as a full test run or a release build.
• Automation scripts that need Xcode or the iOS simulator.
• Coding agents such as Claude Code or Codex, working on your own repositories.
• Testing your web app in Safari on a real Mac.

What it cannot run

This is where a Mac server differs from a Linux box. The macOS license lets a Mac be leased for one purpose. Apple calls it "Permitted Developer Services". Its examples are continuous integration, building software from source, automated testing, and the developer tools that support those. That is in Section 3 of the macOS Tahoe 26 license, read in October 2026.

So a rented Mac server is the wrong place for a public website, a mail server, a media server, or a messaging relay. Our terms follow the license. Our post on the license quotes the full section.

What makes it a server

A Mac on a desk is built to sleep, wait for a login, and stop when the lid closes. A Mac server has to do the opposite. Ours are set up that way before you get them.

• Each Mac is a physical M6 Mac mini, never shared and never virtualized.
• It is on wired gigabit ethernet, on business fiber, in our private facility in New Jersey.
• On the agent plan, your session survives reboots.
• Live uptime for every machine is public on our status page.
• It is wiped and reimaged between customers.

How you reach it

Every Mac sits on a private Tailscale network. You reach it with SSH and screen sharing from your own devices. There is no public SSH port and no static public IPv4 address.

That suits most build work. A CI agent such as the GitHub Actions runner connects out to its service and picks up jobs. Nothing needs to reach in. It does rule out serving traffic to the public internet, which the license rules out anyway.

What is installed

Each server runs macOS 27. Xcode 26.6 is installed with first launch done, along with the iOS 26.5 simulator runtime. The GitHub Actions runner software is preinstalled. You have sudo and Homebrew, so you can add any Xcode version and any CI agent. The other CI docs cover GitLab, Buildkite and Jenkins.

Sizes and prices

• M6, 16 GB memory, 256 GB SSD: $139 a month as a runner or $169 as an agent Mac. In stock, ready in 1 to 4 hours. The first month is $69 or $84.
• M4, 16 GB memory, 256 GB SSD: $119 a month as a runner or $149 as an agent Mac. The previous base chip, at the lowest price. Pre-order, live in about a week. Nothing is charged until it is live.
• M5 Pro, 48 GB memory, 1 TB SSD: $269 a month as a runner or $299 as an agent Mac. For agents that also run open models locally. Pre-order, live in about a week. A one-time build fee of $199 applies.
• M5 Pro, 64 GB memory, 1 TB SSD: $319 a month as a runner or $349 as an agent Mac. The most memory a Mac mini can hold. Pre-order, live in about a week. A one-time build fee of $249 applies.

The runner plan is for CI and scripts. The agent plan adds Claude Code and Codex, a browser desktop, and a session kept alive across reboots. Billing is monthly, and you can cancel from the portal.

Your first hour with it

When your Mac server is ready, we send you a Tailscale share invite. You install Tailscale, sign in, and accept it. Then you connect with SSH, using the address shown in your portal. Most people register their CI runner next. Then they run one build by hand to warm the caches.

From then on, the Mac keeps its state. Your checkouts, derived data and Homebrew packages stay where you left them. That is why a warm M6 ran a typical CI job in 27 seconds in our benchmark. A fresh GitHub-hosted runner took 269 seconds for the same job.

Who should not rent a Mac server from us

• You need a static IP or an inbound public port.
• You need an SLA, or servers in more than one region.
• You need a Mac Studio, a Mac Pro, or a GPU server.
• You want to host something public, like a site or a mail service.
• You need managed code signing or a build UI. We do not offer either.

For a step by step start, read the setup docs. To compare with renting a whole Mac elsewhere, see MacRun vs MacStadium.