head to head · open source
Harness vs cuber-gem
Harness has 38,378 GitHub stars, 3,397 forks, 106 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. cuber-gem has 713 stars, 27 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 5 months ago. Harness leads on adoption by 5,283% (38,378 vs 713 stars). Harness is written in Go under Apache-2.0; cuber-gem is written in Ruby under Apache-2.0. Harness has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, cuber-gem 4%. Harness was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (continuous-delivery, 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
| Harness | cuber-gem | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 713 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-04-12 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 27 |
| 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 cuber-gem if
- You want the cuber-gem feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and cuber-gem 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 cuber-gem
Cuber is an Apache 2.0 licensed, Ruby based automation tool that packages and deploys applications written in any language or framework onto Kubernetes from a roughly ten line Cuberfile and a single cuber deploy command, aimed at developers and small teams who want the simplicity of a platform as a service without its cost or provider lock in.
read the full cuber-gem overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Harness or cuber-gem more popular?
Harness has 38,378 GitHub stars and cuber-gem has 713. Harness has the larger community by that measure.
Are Harness and cuber-gem free?
Both are open source. Harness is licensed under Apache-2.0 and cuber-gem under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Harness and cuber-gem?
Harness is written in Go and cuber-gem in Ruby. 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 cuber-gem?
Choose Harness if you want the larger community (38,378 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose cuber-gem if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.