head to head · open source
Harness vs Bear
Harness has 38,785 GitHub stars, 3,451 forks, 106 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Bear has 6,536 stars, 372 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Harness leads on adoption by 493% (38,785 vs 6,536 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%. Bear 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 | ★ 39K | ★ 6.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-10-30 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 372 |
| 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 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 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 Bear
ʕ·ᴥ·ʔ Build EAR =============== Bear gives you working code navigation, autocomplete, and diagnostics on any C/C++ project, whatever the build system. Prefix your build command with bear and it produces the compile commands.json file that Clang tooling (clangd, clang tidy, and friends) needs to understand your code. The [JSON compilation database][JSONCDB] describes how each translation unit is compiled. Bear captures the compiler invocations while your build runs and writes the database for you no changes to your build system required. [JSONCDB]: When to use Bear Bear is the tool of choice when the build system…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Harness or Bear more popular?
Harness has 38,785 GitHub stars and Bear has 6,536. 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 (38,785 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.