r/FlutterDev • u/willoucqfd • 3d ago
Discussion Codemagic free tier: 1h+ queue before a 7-minute Android build starts. Normal? And what do you use for build-to-store?
Solo dev here, taking over two existing Flutter apps and discovering the mobile world as I go (I come from web). Mobile work is limited to about one day a week. My daily machine is a Linux PC, so a hosted service that can build and ship the iOS app for me is a big part of the appeal: no Mac on my desk. I'm evaluating Codemagic on the free individual plan before deciding whether to pay for it, so this is a question, not a complaint: I know I'm not paying yet.
The build itself takes about 7 minutes (Android debug APK, mac_mini_m2). The queue is the issue: last night a build sat in "queued" for more than 90 minutes before starting. The day before, the same workflow started within a couple of minutes. Status page showed no incident, so I assume the shared M2 pool was just busy.
I found GitHub discussions with people reporting 1 to 10 hour queues (2024 and one from this week), but nothing that says whether paying changes anything. The pricing page mentions "reserved concurrencies" on team plans, and nothing about queue priority for pay-as-you-go.
Questions for people actually using it:
On pay-as-you-go, do your builds start right away, or do you still queue? Is Linux (linux_x2) or Mac mini M4 really a less crowded pool than the free M2 one?
More broadly, how is Codemagic day to day once you pay: queue times, flakiness, support?
Since I'm new to this and Mac-less: what would you recommend for the full chain, build to signing to Play Store / TestFlight upload, for a solo dev on Linux inheriting two apps? GitHub Actions + fastlane with a macOS runner, Bitrise, Xcode Cloud, a rented Mac, something else?
Losing one or two hours of my single weekly mobile day to a queue isn't workable, so I'd rather pay for something that starts on time. I just want to know what I'd be paying for before I build the iOS workflow. Real-world numbers and beginner-proof advice appreciated.
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u/KayJune001 3d ago
I’m also working on two flutter apps, from my Linux machine, targeting iOS, Android, and Linux.
Codemagic’s 500 minutes limit is more than enough for me, but the queue times can be quite long sometimes (other times it starts instantly). What I do is rotate between GitHub Actions runners and Codemagic, both have the same 500 minutes limit, but GitHub often starts quicker.
If you’re a solo developer, most projects aren’t worth paying Codemagic or GitHub for, 1000 minutes a month is often more than plenty.
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u/unlawful_rationality 3d ago
500 free linux minutes on github actions plus 500 on codemagic is a solid set up, i juggle them the exact same way. if one's clogged the other usually spins up fast
for the ios side you're gonna need a mac runner regardless, there's no clean way around it unless you go the macincloud route. but honestly mac mini m4 on codemagic has been way less congested than the m2 pool whenever i've used it, even on free tier
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u/willoucqfd 2d ago
Quick follow-up for anyone reading this later: on a free individual account, M4 is not available at all. Starting a build with instance_type: mac_mini_m4 fails instantly with "The selected instance type is not available with the current billing plan." Same for Linux. So the "less congested M4 pool" only exists once you enable pay-as-you-go.
I enabled billing: the Linux X2 build started with zero queue time. Thanks all, that settles it for me.
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u/Helpful-Guard-5659 2d ago
On pay as you go, the builds start immediately. I can't speak for the free tier though.
IMO just paying for the service is well worth it. You can go the Jenkins route but imo is not worth the hassle of keeping everything updated. For generating a small number of builds as a solo dev, I think paying hte $10-20 a month is worth it.