From $19.99/month. Ship in minutes.

Not owning a Mac won't stop you from shipping your app.

Push your code. GitHub's own free Mac builds, signs, and uploads your app to TestFlight. You don't need Xcode. You don't need a $699 MacBook. You don't need a $20–100/month Mac rental just to click "Archive" once. Macless is $19.99/month, or $299 once and it’s yours. Same pipeline that shipped my own app, Citolex, to the App Store.

Ship it in minutes — from $19.99/mo see how it works

30-day money-back guarantee if you can't get a signed build out.

$ git push origin main
→ GitHub spins up a macOS build machine (free, public repo)
→ signs the app, archives it, exports a .ipa
→ uploads to TestFlight
done. no Mac involved, nothing spent.

A real GitHub Actions run of this pipeline's build steps, checkout, Xcode select, dependency install, and a genuine 6m58s archive step, all green

A real run of this pipeline's build steps, on GitHub's own macOS servers, checkout, Xcode, dependencies, and a genuine 6m58s archive step, all real, all green. (This specific run stops at an unsigned archive since it's a public demo repo with nobody's real Apple certs in it. The signing and TestFlight upload steps are the same workflow, just with your own signing details filled in.) See the actual log or read the real workflow file.

I'm Jackson. I have a full-time job lifting houses for new foundations, but I love reading and I couldn't find a free speed-reading app with text to speech. So I built an app called Citolex, and after finding out I needed a Mac to ship it, I got stuck. I've always been a Windows user. I'm not going to spend $699 on a new Mac, or even $300 on a used one covered in who knows what. And I definitely don't want to rent a cloud Mac by the month for something I'd use ten minutes at a time. GitHub gives away free macOS build minutes on public repos. Normally that's used for running tests. I used it to build, sign, and upload the whole app instead. It worked, and Citolex actually shipped. This is that setup, cleaned up and wrapped in a wizard so you don't have to piece it together yourself.

— Jackson

What this replaces

Normally, shipping an iOS app means owning a Mac (starting around $699) or renting one in the cloud (usually $20–100+ a month) just to run Xcode, Apple's own app-building software, long enough to sign and upload a build. That's $699 for a step that takes a few minutes. This replaces it with an automated workflow that runs on GitHub's own servers (a free feature called GitHub Actions) and does the same steps, for free, because GitHub doesn't charge for its macOS build servers on public repositories.

The Macless wizard's Connect your project step — signed in with GitHub, picking a repo to ship — The actual wizard, step 1 of 6 — not a mockup.

How it works

1Buy once, then sign in with GitHub — the same one-click popup you've used on any other site. No personal access token to create, no terminal.
2Pick a repo, an existing project or a brand-new one. The wizard adds only the pipeline files (workflows, signing scripts, docs). Anything already in your repo is left as is.
3Enter your app's signing details once in the wizard. It stores them as encrypted GitHub secrets for you, so you never have to find GitHub's own secrets settings page yourself. They never touch your repo or your build logs, and none of the workflows run on pull requests, which is the usual way a public repo leaks secrets.
4Click connect, and GitHub spins up a free Mac in the cloud, builds your app, and signs it with the identity you just gave it.
5The signed build uploads straight to TestFlight. A few minutes later it's there, ready to install on your phone.
6You don't have to open Xcode on a Mac. The wizard means you never even open a terminal.

What's included

It's not just a workflow file you copy and hope works. I've run every piece of this against Apple's real signing and build systems. The changelog has the dated, specific bugs it caught along the way, not just a claim that it's tested.

The guided setup wizardConnect GitHub, pick a repo, enter your signing details once — the wizard pushes the pipeline and stores them as encrypted GitHub secrets for you. No manual GitHub Secrets page, no copy-pasting. They never appear in your repo or your build logs, and none of these workflows run on pull requests, which is the usual way a public repo leaks secrets.
The GitHub Actions workflow underneath itThe actual build → sign → archive → upload pipeline the wizard installs, ready to drop into your project by hand too if you'd rather.
A Simulator-preview workflowBuilds your app and screenshots it running in the iOS Simulator, on GitHub's own servers — no signing setup, no Apple hardware, so you can see it before you've configured anything else.
The signing scriptFills in your app's unique identifiers and signing certificates automatically — the irritating part that normally means clicking through Xcode by hand.
Scheduled expiry monitoringA workflow that checks your signing certificate expiry dates on a schedule and warns you before a build starts failing because something expired without you knowing.
A setup guideWalks from an empty GitHub repo to a signed build in TestFlight, no steps skipped.
Certificate and secrets notesHow to generate every signing credential you need without opening Xcode.
An App Store Connect guideScreenshot sizes, the export compliance question, App Privacy — the fields that aren't obvious the first time through, so you're more likely to get through review.
A troubleshooting docThe actual errors this pipeline hit while I was building it, and how I fixed each one.
Signing DoctorThe free standalone diagnostic pulled out of this pipeline's own validation step. Paste in your signing setup and it tells you why it's failing, in plain English, on any project and any CI.
Rejection DoctorPaste in an App Store rejection message and it decodes what Apple is actually asking for, across 57 rejection categories, plus a starting point for your appeal.

This is the exact pipeline behind Citolex. A full app with native Swift plugins that went from me wondering if I could even ship it, to submitted for App Store review, without a single Mac. Every fix in the troubleshooting doc is one this pipeline actually needed. → citolex.com

Not ready to buy? Start free — no purchase, no account.

Signing Doctor is a free, standalone tool pulled straight out of this pipeline's own validation step. Paste in your signing setup and it tells you exactly why it's failing, in plain English, on any project, any CI.

Rejection Doctor — free. Paste in an App Store rejection message and it decodes what Apple's actually asking for, across 57 rejection categories, plus a starting point for your appeal.

	Needs a Mac?	Handles signing setup?	Cost
Macless	No	Yes — the wizard walks you through it and stores it for you	$19.99/mo, or $299 once and you keep it
Codemagic / Bitrise	No	Real reviewers flag rough signing setup and documentation	Per-build or monthly
Xcode Cloud	Yes, to configure	Only from inside Xcode	Requires owning a Mac first
fastlane / free GitHub Actions	No	DIY — cert and profile errors are yours to debug alone	Debugging time
Fiverr gigs	No	No — needs an already-signed build from you first	Per submission, forever

Before you ask

Do I need any Apple hardware?

No. No Mac to build or sign — and no iPhone or iPad to see it running, either. The pipeline includes a built-in Simulator-preview workflow: it builds your app and boots an iOS Simulator right on GitHub's own servers, then hands you a screenshot, so you can check that it actually launches and looks right without owning any Apple hardware. (A real device is still the last word before you actually submit — camera, push notifications, and true on-device performance can't be fully checked in a Simulator — but it's no longer something you need just to get started.)

What computer do I actually need, then?

Any of them. The build itself runs on GitHub's servers, not yours — your machine is just where you click buttons in a browser tab. A Chromebook works. A school or library computer works. An old Windows laptop that couldn't run Xcode if its life depended on it works. Even your phone's browser works. If it can load GitHub.com, it can ship your iOS app.

Is this against Apple's or GitHub's rules?

No. You're using GitHub's own free macOS minutes to build your own app, on your own repo, under your own Apple Developer account — exactly what they're for. This isn't reselling compute or running anyone else's builds.

Do I still need to pay Apple?

Yes — the $99/year Apple Developer Program fee is separate and unavoidable. This removes the Mac requirement, not Apple's own fee.

Why not just use Codemagic or Bitrise?

Those are solid, polished services, and if you'd rather pay per build or a monthly fee for a fully managed GUI, they're a fine choice — but it's worth knowing what their own users flag most, in their own reviews: "very poor documentation for code signing" on Codemagic (a Capterra reviewer), and "setting up Apple builds for testing on my device took me more than a couple of hours" on Bitrise (a G2 reviewer) — the same signing setup this pipeline's troubleshooting doc, and its wizard, already have fixes for. This is different: you're paying for the actual pipeline itself — $19.99/month, or $299 once and nothing after — and it runs on GitHub's own free macOS minutes on public repos. The pipeline lives in your repo, so cancelling doesn't stop your builds. It's for people who'd rather own the setup than keep renting access to someone else's. Full comparison here if you want the honest breakdown of when each one actually makes sense.

I'm on Ionic Appflow — what do I switch to?

Appflow shuts down December 31, 2027, and Ionic's already stopped selling it to new customers. If that's your current CI, here's what to actually weigh before picking a replacement, including the one-time-cost option most "Appflow alternative" writeups don't mention.

Isn't there a $20 Fiverr gig that does this?

Those gigs upload an already-signed .ipa you hand them, signing itself is listed as your problem to solve first on most of them. Macless is the part before that, it sets up the actual build and signing pipeline from your source code, so you have a signed build to upload in the first place, and every update after this one ships the same way with a normal git push — or a click through the wizard. Full comparison here if you want the honest breakdown of when each one actually makes sense.

Why not just use Xcode Cloud, fastlane, or a free GitHub Action?

Xcode Cloud works if you already own a Mac — full comparison here — but setup happens inside Xcode itself, so it doesn't help if you don't have one. It's also worth knowing that even developers who do own a Mac report real reliability trouble with it on Apple's own developer forums — one thread, titled "Xcode Cloud is literally broken for 2 months now," has developers reporting builds failing with network errors most of the time. fastlane's match is free and handles signing well if you're willing to learn it — though even fastlane's own maintainers have called certificate expiry "one of the few fundamental signing features fastlane has not yet solved." Free GitHub Marketplace actions can build and sign for free too, they just don't upload to TestFlight, and they don't stop you from hitting the same certificate and provisioning profile errors this pipeline's troubleshooting doc already has fixes for. This is for someone with no Mac access at all who doesn't want to spend a weekend finding that out. Full comparison here if you want the honest breakdown of what the free route skips.

Is it safe to put signing certificates in GitHub Secrets on a public repo?

Yes. None of the workflows trigger on pull requests, only on pushes to your own main branch or a manual run, both of which require write access to your repo. The usual risk with public-repo CI is a stranger's pull request tricking a workflow into leaking secrets — these workflows are never triggered by pull requests, so that doesn't apply. Every workflow also runs with read-only repo permissions by default. Your certificates sit in encrypted GitHub secrets, never in the repo or the build logs.

What if I'm not using Capacitor?

The signing and CI steps work no matter what generates your iOS project — Capacitor (a tool that turns a web app into a native iOS/Android app) is just what my example app used. The guide covers plain Xcode projects too.

What if my repo needs to be private?

Private repos work exactly the same way — nothing about the pipeline changes. The only difference is GitHub's free-minutes allowance: public repos get unlimited free macOS build minutes, private repos get a monthly allowance before you're billed per minute past it (still usually cheaper than a rented Mac). Either way, your signing certificates and credentials are stored as encrypted GitHub secrets — they're never exposed in your repo or build logs, public or private.

What if I only need Android, not iOS?

There's a Android pipeline included in every plan — the same GitHub Actions workflow, already run against real Android build failures, just without the iOS signing and build steps you'd never use. Android builds never needed a Mac to begin with, so this one's priced for that.

What if I get stuck?

Email me. The troubleshooting doc covers the errors this pipeline has actually produced, and if you can't get a build out within 30 days, I'll refund you.