Comparison
HexSign vs Xcode Cloud
Xcode Cloud is Apple's CI/CD service built into Xcode and App Store Connect. It signs builds automatically with Apple-managed certificates and provisioning profiles, so signing just works inside Xcode Cloud but lives inside Apple's infrastructure. HexSign is a dedicated dashboard for the certificate and profile lifecycle that works with any CI, keeping signing material in a portable, encrypted vault you control.
TL;DR
- Xcode Cloud signs builds automatically with Apple-managed certificates and profiles. Convenient, but opaque and locked to Xcode Cloud.
- The signing identity can't be exported or reused in another CI, fastlane, or a local release.
- Xcode Cloud bills by compute hour. HexSign is a flat per-team plan and runs on CI you already pay for.
- HexSign works alongside Xcode Cloud (or any CI) through the App Store Connect API, with a CLI to fetch signing material anywhere.
Where teams hit friction
Common pain points with Xcode Cloud
Why teams pick HexSign
What HexSign adds on top of Xcode Cloud
Live relationship graph
An interactive graph linking certificates, provisioning profiles, bundle IDs, and devices. Click any node to see its dependencies and the blast radius of revoking or rotating it.
Expiration alerts before things break
Alerts to email, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Jira, PagerDuty, Jira Service Management, or incident.io at thresholds you choose (7, 14, 30, 60, 90 days). Send a test alert before enabling delivery, so there are no surprise expirations during a release.
Health score & expiring items
A 0-100% health score across every Apple account you connect, plus an expiring-items panel that surfaces what to act on first. No CLI invocation required.
Guided provisioning profile wizard
A step-by-step wizard picks the right profile type, identifier, signing certificate, and devices, then generates the profile through Apple's API. No portal tab-switching.
Multi-account dashboard
Connect one or many Apple Developer team accounts. Each syncs independently with its own status and error reporting, all visible from a single dashboard.
Audit logs, RBAC & MFA
Owner / Admin / Member roles, per-user auth activity log, and MFA via SMS or TOTP authenticator apps. Every certificate, profile, device, and identifier change is logged.
Side-by-side
HexSign vs Xcode Cloud, feature by feature
HexSign | Xcode Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Approach | ||
| Primary purpose | Apple Developer asset dashboard | Managed CI/CD with automatic signing |
| Standalone of CI | Tied to Xcode Cloud builds | |
| Works with any CI | Xcode Cloud only | |
| Portable signing identity | Yes, fetch anywhere via CLI | |
| Setup | Add an ASC API key | Enable in Xcode + App Store Connect |
| Asset Management | ||
| Certificate generation | Automatic (managed by Apple) | |
| Certificate revocation | Yes, from the dashboard | Apple Developer Portal |
| Profile creation | Yes, via wizard | Automatic |
| Profile regeneration | Automatic | |
| Manual cert/profile upload | Synced via API; .p12 key upload for certs made elsewhere | |
| Bundle ID & capability management | Via Apple Developer Portal | |
| CSR generation with KMS-encrypted private key | ||
| Export / reuse signing identity elsewhere | ||
| Visibility & Monitoring | ||
| Relationship graph | ||
| Health score dashboard | ||
| Multi-account dashboard | Per-team App Store Connect | |
| Audit perspective | Asset lifecycle | Build-centric |
| Alerts | ||
| Cert/profile expiration alerts (email) | Yes, custom thresholds | Not documented |
| Slack alerts for expiry | Build notifications only | |
| Microsoft Teams alerts for expiry | Build notifications only | |
| Team & Security | ||
| Role-based access control | Owner / Admin / Member | App Store Connect roles |
| Multi-factor authentication | TOTP / SMS | Apple ID (account-level) |
| Audit logs | Build-centric | |
| Pricing | ||
| Free tier | Limited free compute hours | |
| Free trial | 14 days | |
| Pricing model | Flat per-team plan | Billed by compute hour |
FAQ
Questions about HexSign vs Xcode Cloud
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