MacWeb Introduces MiniCluster™, On-Demand Bare-Metal Apple Mac mini Clusters for Creative and Technical Workloads

Now available on demand: 4- and 10-node bare-metal Apple M4 Pro Mac mini clusters with Thunderbolt 5 private networking, 10G internet connectivity, and up to 80 Gbps intra-cluster bandwidth — starting at $1,200 per month.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- MacWeb, a provider of Mac-based cloud infrastructure for AI inference and macOS application workloads, today announced MacWeb MiniCluster™, an on-demand, pre-configured bare-metal Apple silicon cluster service for teams that have outgrown individual cloud Macs. MiniCluster brings together dedicated Apple M4 Pro Mac mini systems into a single, private compute cloud for creative pipelines, scientific and technical computing, GitHub runners, and CI/CD and production workflows—without the overhead of virtualization.

MacWeb MiniCluster is now available on demand in MacWeb's US West (Silicon Valley) region. The announcement follows MacWeb's recent opening of its US East region cloud service in the New York metropolitan area, signaling a growing coast-to-coast footprint.

Each MiniCluster runs as a dedicated private compute cloud with private Thunderbolt 5 networking between nodes (up to 80 Gbps), a 10G internet port, and sequential public IPv4 addresses. Because the service is bare metal, each cluster is assigned to a single customer, with no hypervisor layer between workloads and the Apple silicon.

"Teams don't want to become experts in racking Macs and building custom networks just to get more capacity," said Eric Bickford, CEO of MacWeb. "MiniCluster turns Apple silicon into a predictable, on-demand building block: a dedicated four-node cluster with 10G internet connectivity and a private Thunderbolt 5 LAN between nodes. This makes it ideal for creative work, technical computing, and modern CI/CD workflows."

Two configurations are available at launch:

• MacWeb MiniCluster (four-node): 56 CPU cores, 80 GPU cores, 64 NPU cores, 256 GB aggregate unified memory (4×64 GB), 4 TB SSD storage, four media and ray-tracing engines, and four sequential public IPv4 addresses.
  
  

• MacWeb MiniCluster Pro (ten-node): 140 CPU cores, 200 GPU cores, 160 NPU cores, 640 GB aggregate unified memory (10×64 GB), 10 TB SSD storage, ten media and ray-tracing engines, and ten sequential public IPv4 addresses.

Built for Mac-native scientific analysis, software development, and rendering workloads
MacWeb MiniCluster is designed for organizations that need Mac-based production workload capabilities at scale. Typical use cases include CI/CD farms for iOS and macOS, Xcode build and test, application backends that need consistency between development and production, 3D and video rendering pipelines, and scientific or technical compute that benefits from low-latency, clustered Mac hardware.

"Most of our customers start with a handful of cloud Macs and then realize they need a predictable way to scale," Bickford added. "MacWeb MiniCluster turns Apple silicon into a standard unit of compute that you can budget for, monitor, and grow, often at significant savings compared to running equivalent Mac workloads on general-purpose cloud platforms."

Simple monthly pricing and on-demand activation
The four-node MiniCluster is priced at $1,200 per month, while the ten-node MiniCluster Pro is priced at $3,000 per month. MiniCluster is offered as a monthly cloud subscription with no long-term contract and the ability to cancel at any time.

Customers can order the base four-node MiniCluster on demand in MacWeb's US West region with instant activation directly from the MacWeb website. MiniCluster Pro is available via quote for larger deployments. Interested teams can request capacity planning sessions and migration support at macweb.com or by contacting [email protected].

About MacWeb
MacWeb is a Silicon Valley-based cloud services company that provides high-performance, dedicated Mac cloud services for developers. Built by developers for developers, MacWeb offers a range of affordable and easy-to-use Mac-as-a-service solutions that empower developers and IT teams to build, test, and deploy applications in the cloud with speed and efficiency. With MacWeb handling the infrastructure, developers can focus on what they do best: creating innovative and world-changing software. MacWeb is committed to providing a highly available, secure, and scalable cloud environment that meets the needs of today's fast-growing businesses. For more information, visit macweb.com.

Apple, Mac mini, and macOS are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.

SOURCE MacWeb