You get a license for a week only (without paying for a dev account), and has a limit of concurrently signing at most 7 apps (my parameters might not be exactly correct, but are roughly this), but a single application might require multiple signatures.
The most common way to make all this signing a bit more bearable is to have AltStore installed on your mac, which will automatically re-signs the select few apps you want in some hacky way (needs your Apple id and password).
The most common way is to pay $99 and use Xcode. I think in the long run, limiting the freedom of developers to choose whichever tools they like is actually hurting Apple, but let's not pretend that there is no practical way of running your own software on iOS.
My answers refer to ihatepython's original comment, and own software is understood there as "software I develop myself". I am not talking about own software in the sense of software you obtained from other people, which is what sideloading is about.
> The most common way is to pay $99 and use Xcode.
Don't you find it ridiculous that the "common" way to run software written by you on a $1k device that you bought is via buying $2k machine and paying 99$ yearly?
If you own an iPhone, it's actually very practical to also have a Mac.
> run a specific software at least once a week, and limited to like 3 apps.
What?