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A Scaleway Mac mini alternative

Scaleway rents dedicated Mac minis in Paris, by the hour or by the month. Its pricing page, read in October 2026, listed the M4 with 16 GB and 256 GB at €149 a month. By the hour it was €0.22, before tax. If you are in Europe or want hourly billing, Scaleway is a strong choice. If you want an M6 in the US with Xcode already installed, MacRun is $139 a month.

What Scaleway sells

Scaleway calls the product Apple silicon as-a-Service. Every machine is a whole Mac mini with no hypervisor. These are the plans on its Apple silicon pricing page on October 1, 2026, all in the PAR-1 zone in Paris. Prices are before tax.

Plan         Chip      Memory   Disk       Per month   Per hour
M1-M         M1        8 GB     256 GB     €75         €0.11
M2-M         M2        16 GB    256 GB     €115        €0.17
M2-L         M2 Pro    16 GB    512 GB     €139        €0.21
M4-S         M4        16 GB    256 GB     €149        €0.22
M4-SP        M4        16 GB    512 GB     €165        €0.24
M4-M         M4        32 GB    1 TB       €199        €0.29
M4-XL        M4 Pro    64 GB    2 TB       €335        €0.49

The Mac mini M4 product page says the minimum lease is 24 hours, because of Apple's license. It says a machine is available in less than 5 minutes. Each M4 can have one IPv4 address and one IPv6 subnet. A private network costs €9.99 a month at 1 Gbps or €19.99 at 10 Gbps. We did not see an M6 plan listed.

Hourly or monthly on Scaleway

Scaleway shows an hourly and a monthly price for each Mac. For the M4-S, €149 divided by €0.22 is about 677 hours. That is about 28 days. Below that many hours in a month, the hourly rate costs less. Above it, the monthly price wins. Check Scaleway's billing documentation for exactly how the two prices apply to your account.

Who should choose Scaleway

  • Teams in Europe. Paris is close to most of the EU, and billing is in euros.
  • Short jobs. After the first 24 hours you pay by the hour, so a three day job costs three days.
  • Bigger M4 configurations. Scaleway lists 32 GB with 1 TB, and an M4 Pro with 64 GB and 2 TB.
  • People who need a public IPv4 address on the Mac itself.
  • Teams already on Scaleway. The Mac joins the same private network as the rest of your servers.
  • Linux on Apple silicon. Scaleway lists an M2 Pro plan built for Asahi Linux. MacRun only runs macOS.

Where MacRun is different

MacRun rents the newer M6 Mac mini. It has a 12-core CPU, 16 GB of memory and a 256 GB disk. The runner plan is $139 a month, and the first month is $69. We bill in US dollars. We do not convert the euro prices here, since the rate moves.

The machine is not blank. It ships with Xcode 26.6 opened once, the iOS 26.5 simulator runtime and the GitHub Actions runner software. You get full administrator access, so you can add anything else with sudo or Homebrew. It is ready 1 to 4 hours after payment.

The agent plan is $169 a month, and $84 for the first month. It adds Claude Code and Codex, a session that survives reboots, and the Mac desktop in a browser tab. You sign in with your own Claude or ChatGPT plan, so there are no token fees from us.

Location matters for screen sharing. Our Macs sit in a private facility in New Jersey, on the US East Coast. For a developer in New York or Toronto, that is much closer than Paris. For a developer in Berlin, Paris is closer.

We publish a benchmark. A clean build of the Wikipedia iOS app took 86 seconds on our M6 and 183 seconds on a GitHub-hosted macos-26 runner. We have not tested Scaleway hardware.

Questions to settle before you switch

  • Where must your data live? If an EU rule covers your code or test data, a Paris machine may be required. Ours is in the US.
  • Who looks at the screen? Screen sharing feels best close to the person using it. A CI runner cares less. GitHub's docs say a self-hosted runner only needs outbound HTTPS on port 443.
  • Which chip do you need? Scaleway lists M1, M2, M2 Pro, M4 and M4 Pro. MacRun stocks the M6 and sells the M4 as a pre-order.
  • Which currency? Scaleway prices are in euros before tax. MacRun bills in US dollars.

What MacRun does not offer

  • No hourly billing and no 24 hour plans.
  • No public IP. Access is over a private Tailscale network.
  • No European location and no SLA.
  • No Linux. Every machine runs macOS.

If you need Paris or hourly billing, Scaleway fits better. For a US M6 running steady CI or an agent, see MacRun pricing. The guide to renting a Mac mini for CI covers setup.

Frequently asked questions

How much is a Scaleway Mac mini?

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In October 2026, Scaleway's pricing page listed the M4 with 16 GB and 256 GB at €149 a month. By the hour it was €0.22, before tax. The M1 started at €75 a month.

Does Scaleway have a minimum rental period for Macs?

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Yes. Scaleway's Mac mini M4 page says the minimum lease is 24 hours, because of Apple's license terms (read October 2026).

Where are Scaleway Macs located?

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In Paris. The pricing page lists only the PAR-1 zone for Apple silicon. MacRun's Macs are in a private facility in New Jersey, USA.

Is MacRun a good Scaleway alternative?

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If you want an M6 in the US with Xcode installed, yes, at $139 a month. If you need hourly billing, a public IP or a European location, Scaleway fits better.

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