I've built a couple of neat little Python projects that I want people to be able to use for free on Mac computers. Using the Pyinstaller library, I was able to turn my projects into apps that I can just move to my Applications folder and run like any other app.
However, I've noticed that these apps only work on my computer, and I think it's because I haven't signed the apps, so other computers can't run them. The only way I can run my apps on another computer is to install Python and Pyinstaller on that computer and go through that whole process again. This would be a pretty confusing process for the average user to have to follow on their own. I'd much rather be able to just distribute a pre-built app in a dmg or zip file, but I always run into errors, I suspect because of the lack of a signature.
I've done some Googling and all I can find on how to sign apps for MacOS requires Xcode and the Apple Developer Program. I'm not interested in using Xcode for this at all, nor do I want to pay Apple $99/year for the Apple Developer Program. I just want people to be able to easily run my apps on their computers. I'm asking mainly out of desperation: is there no other way to do this? Do I really have to pay Apple, jump through their hoops, and find some way of getting my Python projects into Xcode? I'm not trying to sell my software, I'm trying to hand it out for free. And I don't care about getting my app on the App Store, I want to host it on my own personal site.