head to head · open source
Harness vs Bear
Harness has 38,398 GitHub stars, 3,402 forks, 106 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Bear has 6,493 stars, 369 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Harness leads on adoption by 491% (38,398 vs 6,493 stars). Harness is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Bear is written in Rust under GPL-3.0. Harness has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Bear 6%. Harness was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| Harness | Bear | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 6.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 369 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Harness if
- You weight community size — 38K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Bear if
- You want the Bear feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and Bear fits your workflow better
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 →
About Bear
Bear is a GPL 3.0, Rust based command line tool that produces a compile commands.json compilation database for any C or C++ build by recording the compiler invocations that run during it, and it is aimed at developers, code explorers, and CI jobs whose build systems cannot emit that database on their own.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Harness or Bear more popular?
Harness has 38,398 GitHub stars and Bear has 6,493. Harness has the larger community by that measure.
Are Harness and Bear free?
Both are open source. Harness is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Bear under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Harness and Bear?
Harness is written in Go and Bear in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Harness or Bear?
Choose Harness if you want the larger community (38,398 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Bear if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.