head to head · open source
Appwrite vs Harness
Appwrite has 57,400 GitHub stars, 5,725 forks, 1,008 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Harness has 38,378 stars, 3,397 forks, 106 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Appwrite leads on adoption by 50% (57,400 vs 38,378 stars). Appwrite is written in PHP under BSD-3-Clause; Harness is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Appwrite has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Harness 9%. Appwrite was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (docker), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Appwrite | Harness | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 57K | ★ 38K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | PHP | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.7K | ⑂ 3.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Appwrite if
- You weight community size — 57K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Harness if
- You want the Harness feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Harness fits your workflow better
About Appwrite
Appwrite is an open source backend platform that consolidates infrastructure services—authentication, databases, storage, functions, messaging, hosting, and real time capabilities—into a single, unified system. It runs as a self hosted service or via a managed cloud offering (Appwrite Cloud), targeting developers who want to avoid assembling and maintaining disparate backend tools.
read the full Appwrite overview →
About Harness
Harness Open Source is an Apache 2.0, Go based developer platform that combines Git source control management, CI/CD pipelines, Gitspaces hosted development environments and artifact registries into one self hostable system for engineering teams that want end to end software delivery without stitching four separate products together.
read the full Harness overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Appwrite or Harness more popular?
Appwrite has 57,400 GitHub stars and Harness has 38,378. Appwrite has the larger community by that measure.
Are Appwrite and Harness free?
Both are open source. Appwrite is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and Harness under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Appwrite and Harness?
Appwrite is written in PHP and Harness in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Appwrite or Harness?
Choose Appwrite if you want the larger community (57,400 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose Harness if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.