head to head · open source
Harness vs gradle
Harness has 38,785 GitHub stars, 3,451 forks, 106 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. gradle has 18,909 stars, 5,264 forks, 3,494 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Harness leads on adoption by 105% (38,785 vs 18,909 stars). Harness is written in Go under Apache-2.0; gradle is written in Groovy under Apache-2.0. Harness has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, gradle 28%. gradle 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 | gradle | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 19K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Groovy |
| Last push | 2026-10-30 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 5.3K |
| 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 gradle if
- You want the gradle feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Groovy
- You evaluated both and gradle 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 gradle
🐘 Gradle Build Tool Gradle is a highly scalable build automation tool designed to handle everything from large, multi project enterprise builds to quick development tasks across various languages. Gradle’s modular, performance oriented architecture seamlessly integrates with development environments, making it a go to solution for building, testing, and deploying applications on Java , Kotlin , Scala , Android , Groovy , C++ , and Swift . For a comprehensive overview, please visit the official Gradle project homepage. 🚀 Getting Started Starting with Gradle is easy with these essential resources. Follow these…
read the full gradle overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Harness or gradle more popular?
Harness has 38,785 GitHub stars and gradle has 18,909. Harness has the larger community by that measure.
Are Harness and gradle free?
Both are open source. Harness is licensed under Apache-2.0 and gradle under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Harness and gradle?
Harness is written in Go and gradle in Groovy. 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 gradle?
Choose Harness if you want the larger community (38,785 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose gradle if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.