MacStadium offers free cloud-based Mac mini for open source developers

Hosting company MacStadium has already helped developers move to Apple Silicon, such as the team behind macOS utility HomeBrew, and now it wants to extend that help to more people. Developers working on open source projects, and not funded by other companies, can apply to use MacStadium's services for free.

MacStadium hosts a server farm, and customers can effectively rent a Mac mini on it to remotely develop their open source iOS or macOS apps.

"The open source community is a cornerstone of innovation in the tech world at large, and that holds true for those in the iOS and macOS space as well," says MacStadium's Jeff Vincent in a blog post. "To recognize the value of these contributions, MacStadium offers an Open Source Project as a way to support these important innovations by providing dedicated Mac hosting for free and open source software (FOSS) projects in the iOS and macOS space."

Developers have to meet what MacStadium describes as "some basic criteria." The developers can't already be being paid, for instance, and their project "needs to be under active development." There are full details on the program's terms and conditions page.

"When you enroll in the program, you are given a cloud-hosted, bare metal, Mac mini server to act as a remote build agent to help you continue to efficiently drive innovation without breaking the bank," continues Vincent. "With your free Mac mini, you can develop your iOS or macOS FOSS project locally, and then build and test it in the cloud for free."

Developers get a choice of an Intel or an Apple Silicon Mac mini. "The race toward compatibility with Mac's new M1 hardware is in full swing, and we're excited to be able to support FOSS teams to make the transition as well," says MacStadium.

If a developer's project requires more than a single Mac mini can provide, the company offers paid options. The regular cost of those more powerful solutions will be reduced by the cost the Mac mini hosting would normally be.

"You can apply the value of a single Intel-based or Apple silicon-based Mac mini to any of our Mac private cloud solutions," says the company.

MacStadium says that it is already supporting the projects of around 65 Open Source companies, including HomeBrew, Node.js, and Swift Package Index.

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