Comparison
HexSign vs Expo EAS
With managed credentials, eas build generates iOS distribution certificates and provisioning profiles for you, stores them on EAS servers, and reuses them on the next build. eas credentials lets you inspect, modify, or remove them, and once the credentials exist a teammate can ship a build without being added to your Apple Developer team. For an Expo app built on EAS that is a genuinely good deal. HexSign covers the part EAS does not: what happens to that signing material between builds, and who finds out before it expires.
TL;DR
- EAS managed credentials solve the sharing problem well. Credentials live on EAS servers, get reused automatically, and teammates ship without Apple Developer team access.
- There is no documented scheduled renewal ahead of expiry and no documented expiry alerts. Apple's one-year clock still runs, and EAS is not the thing that warns you.
- EAS credentials are scoped to EAS builds. A Developer ID build of a companion Mac app, a fastlane lane, or a native iOS project in the same org sits outside that scope.
- HexSign reissues certificates and rebuilds profiles on a daily job 30 days before expiry, and alerts email, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Jira, PagerDuty or incident.io when a renewal needs a person.
- If you have already moved to local credentials because you wanted the .p12 on disk, HexSign is the version of that with an audit log and a CLI instead of a file somebody keeps in Dropbox.
By Ash Dan, Founder, HexSign · Last reviewed
Where teams hit friction
Common pain points with Expo EAS
Why teams pick HexSign
What HexSign adds on top of Expo EAS
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 Expo EAS, feature by feature
HexSign | Expo EAS | |
|---|---|---|
| Approach | ||
| Primary purpose | Apple Developer asset dashboard | Build service with managed credentials |
| App types covered | Any iOS or macOS target | React Native / Expo apps |
| Standalone of CI | Credentials scoped to EAS builds | |
| Works with any CI | Yes, via CLI | Not documented |
| Setup | Add an ASC API key | eas build (or eas credentials) |
| Asset Management | ||
| Certificate generation | Yes, on first build | |
| Where signing material lives | KMS-encrypted vault | EAS servers (or local credentials.json) |
| Inspect / modify / remove credentials | Dashboard and CLI | eas credentials |
| Certificate revocation | Yes, from the dashboard | Apple Developer Portal |
| Profile creation | Yes, via wizard | Automatic |
| Ship without Apple team access | Yes, via roles | Yes, once credentials exist |
| Bundle ID & capability management | Via Apple Developer Portal | |
| CSR generation with KMS-encrypted private key | ||
| Renewal & Lifecycle | ||
| Scheduled auto-renewal before expiry | Yes, daily job at 30 days out | Not documented |
| Profile rebuild after cert rotation | Automatic in the same run | Not documented |
| Rotation against a stored CSR | Not documented | |
| Audit perspective | Asset lifecycle | Build-centric |
| Visibility & Monitoring | ||
| Relationship graph | ||
| Health score dashboard | ||
| Expiring-items panel | ||
| Multi-account dashboard | Per-project credentials | |
| Alerts | ||
| Cert/profile expiration alerts (email) | Yes, custom thresholds | Not documented |
| Slack alerts for expiry | Not documented | |
| Microsoft Teams alerts for expiry | Not documented | |
| PagerDuty / incident.io alerts | Not documented | |
| Team & Security | ||
| Role-based access control | Owner / Admin / Member | Expo organisation roles |
| Multi-factor authentication | TOTP / SMS | Account-level |
| Audit logs | Build-centric | |
| Pricing | ||
| Free tier | ||
| Free trial | 14 days | Free tier (no separate trial) |
| Pricing model | Flat per-team plan | Plan plus build usage |
FAQ
Questions about HexSign vs Expo EAS
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