What is the difference between Ad Hoc provisioning profile and a Developer ID provisioning profile?

Question

I'm packaging my app for Mac App Store distribution, but the app cannot be opened locally. I understand that this is because I'm signing with a Mac App Distribution certificate, which is only meant for submission to the App Store. But I want to test my app before submission and have it be as close as possible to the one that will be submitted to the App Store with the Mac App Store distribution profile.

I see that both Ad Hoc and Developer ID provisioning profiles are distribution profiles. Should I be using one of these for local testing to have it most closely resemble the one that will be signed with the Mac App Store certificate during final submission? What are the differences?

My end goal is to just test the app in the closest possible environment to the App Store environment.

Answer 1

Ad Hoc provisioning allows you to distribute to a limited number (up to 100) of specific Macs, each of which must be registered in your App Store Connect account.

Developer ID provisioning lets you distribute to anybody on a Mac.

In either case, the end user will need to have Gatekeeper set up to allow apps downloaded from "Mac App Store and identified developers" or "Anywhere."

So they are similar. The most interesting difference may be that you cannot use in-app purchase with Developer ID provisioning.