head to head · open source
Harness vs 1backend
Harness has 38,798 GitHub stars, 3,451 forks, 106 open issues and last shipped yesterday. 1backend has 2,355 stars, 122 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped 5 months ago. Harness leads on adoption by 1,547% (38,798 vs 2,355 stars). Harness is written in Go under Apache-2.0; 1backend is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. Harness has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, 1backend 5%. 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 | 1backend | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 2.4K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-05-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 122 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Harness if
- You weight community size — 39K 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 1backend if
- You want the 1backend feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and 1backend fits your workflow better
About Harness
Harness Harness Open Source is an open source development platform packed with the power of code hosting, automated DevOps pipelines, hosted development environments (Gitspaces), and artifact registries. Overview Harness Open source is an open source development platform packed with the power of code hosting, automated DevOps pipelines, Gitspaces, and artifact registries. Running Harness locally The latest publicly released docker image can be found on harness/harness. To install Harness yourself, simply run the command below. Once the container is up, you can visit in your browser. The Harness image uses a…
read the full Harness overview →
About 1backend
1Backend AI native microservices platform. v0.9.2. 1backend.com "Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art." — Claude Debussy Overview 1Backend is a full stack platform for the AI era. It lets you build distributed applications fast, without early infrastructure overhead. It’s a framework, proxy, and runtime that handles auth, user accounts, microservice and microfrontend routing, email, and more. It can run and program LLMs inside containers. Zero trust, zero config, with its own ORM for development even without a database. It’s multitenant—host multiple apps or sites on one install. In essence, a…
read the full 1backend overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Harness or 1backend more popular?
Harness has 38,798 GitHub stars and 1backend has 2,355. Harness has the larger community by that measure.
Are Harness and 1backend free?
Both are open source. Harness is licensed under Apache-2.0 and 1backend under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Harness and 1backend?
Harness is written in Go and 1backend 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, Harness or 1backend?
Choose Harness if you want the larger community (38,798 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose 1backend if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.