Apple Developer Certificates: Distribution, Development & Push
Apple uses various types of certificates to ensure the security of applications, authorize devices, and sign code.
Each type of certificate has its specific purpose.
Types of Apple Certificates and Their Purpose
Section titled āTypes of Apple Certificates and Their PurposeāIn modern conditions, for most tasks, you will only need Apple Development and Apple Distribution.
Other types are relevant for specialized tasks - such as Apple Pay, Apple Wallet, distribution outside the App Store, or low-level work with macOS.
Certificates for App Development and Publishing
Section titled āCertificates for App Development and PublishingāApple Development
Section titled āApple DevelopmentāFor debugging applications.
Signs builds that run on real devices during development.
Used with Provisioning profile of type development.
Apple Distribution
Section titled āApple DistributionāFor publishing applications in the App Store.
Signs builds that are sent to the App Store, TestFlight, or Ad Hoc/Enterprise distributions.
Replaces the deprecated iOS Distribution and macOS Distribution.
macOS Development
Section titled āmacOS DevelopmentāUsed for developing macOS applications.
Now replaced with Apple Development.
Mac App Distribution
Section titled āMac App DistributionāFor publishing in the Mac App Store
Signs macOS applications for distribution through the Mac App Store.
Mac Installer Distribution
Section titled āMac Installer DistributionāFor signing installers (PKG)
Used for signing .pkg files when installing macOS applications.
Developer ID Application
Section titled āDeveloper ID ApplicationāFor distribution outside the Mac App Store
Allows distributing applications directly, without the App Store, with verification through Gatekeeper.
Developer ID Installer
Section titled āDeveloper ID InstallerāFor signing installers outside the App Store
Signs .pkg for installing applications distributed directly.
Apple Service Certificates
Section titled āApple Service CertificatesāPass Type ID / Pass Type ID NFC
Section titled āPass Type ID / Pass Type ID NFCāFor Apple Wallet and NFC
Used for signing passes (tickets, cards, etc.) and NFC services.
Merchant ID Certificate
Section titled āMerchant ID CertificateāFor Apple Pay
Required for integrating Apple Pay.
Signs transactions and interacts with the Apple Pay server.
Certificates for App Store Connect Developers
Section titled āCertificates for App Store Connect DevelopersāIOS Development / tvOS Development / watchOS Development
Section titled āIOS Development / tvOS Development / watchOS Developmentā(Outdated)
Used for debugging iOS / tvOS / watchOS applications.
Now replaced with Apple Development.
iOS Distribution / tvOS Distribution / watchOS Distribution
Section titled āiOS Distribution / tvOS Distribution / watchOS Distributionā(Outdated)
Used for publishing iOS / tvOS / watchOS applications.
Now replaced with Apple Distribution.
Developer ID KEXT
Section titled āDeveloper ID KEXTāSigns kernel extensions
Used for signing macOS kernel extensions (.kext)
Developer ID Application G2 / Developer ID KEXT G2
Section titled āDeveloper ID Application G2 / Developer ID KEXT G2āNew generation of certificates for Developer ID
Used starting from macOS Catalina and later.
Recommendations
Section titled āRecommendationsāFor new projects, use only Apple Development and Apple Distribution - they replace most of the old types.
Developer ID certificates are only required when distributing macOS applications outside the Mac App Store.
Apple limits the number of active certificates of one type (for example, a maximum of 2 Distribution certificates per account).