Comparison
HexSign vs the Apple Developer Portal
developer.apple.com is the source of truth for every Apple Developer asset, but it's optimized for one developer at a time, with no relationship visibility, no proactive expiration alerts, and no team-wide audit trail. HexSign sits on top of the App Store Connect API and turns that data into a team-friendly dashboard, without changing where your assets live.
TL;DR
- Apple's portal is the source of truth, but it has no relationship graph, no team audit log, and no Microsoft Teams and Slack alerts.
- HexSign authenticates with an App Store Connect API key (Issuer ID, Key ID, .p8). Your Apple ID password never leaves Apple.
- HexSign is read-only by default. Every write (creating, revoking, regenerating) is triggered by you in the dashboard.
- You still need an active Apple Developer Program membership; HexSign does not replace it.
By Ash Dan, Founder, HexSign · Last reviewed
Where teams hit friction
Common pain points with Apple Developer Portal
Why teams pick HexSign
What HexSign adds on top of Apple Developer Portal
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 Apple Developer Portal, feature by feature
HexSign | Apple Developer Portal | |
|---|---|---|
| Approach | ||
| Source of truth | Reads via App Store Connect API | Apple's primary system |
| Authentication | Cognito + MFA (TOTP/SMS) | Apple ID + 2FA (required since 2019) |
| App Store Connect API key | Used for all sync | Issuer ID + Key ID + .p8 (created here) |
| Cost | Free plan + paid tiers | $99/yr (Developer Program) / $299/yr (Enterprise) |
| Asset Management | ||
| Certificates | ||
| Provisioning profiles | ||
| Bundle IDs & capabilities | ||
| Device registry & UDID enrollment | Yes (max 100 per device family per membership year) | |
| CSR generation with KMS-encrypted private key | Manual upload only | |
| Profile regeneration | Single-click | Manual, one at a time |
| Bulk operations | ||
| Guided profile wizard | ||
| Visibility & Monitoring | ||
| Relationship graph | ||
| Health score dashboard | ||
| Assets-over-time analytics | ||
| Multi-account dashboard | Sign-in switch only | |
| Alerts | ||
| Email expiration alerts | Yes, custom thresholds | 30-day notice (limited routing) |
| Slack webhook alerts | ||
| Microsoft Teams webhook alerts | ||
| Test alert delivery | ||
| Team & Security | ||
| Roles | Owner / Admin / Member | Account Holder, Admin, App Manager, Developer, Marketing, Finance |
| Audit log surfaced to users | ||
| Per-user auth activity log | ||
| SSO (SAML / OIDC) | Available on higher plans | Not documented |
FAQ
Questions about HexSign vs Apple Developer Portal
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