head to head · open source
Harness vs jenkins
Harness has 38,384 GitHub stars, 3,398 forks, 106 open issues and last shipped yesterday. jenkins has 26,559 stars, 9,834 forks, 3,610 open issues and last shipped today. Harness leads on adoption by 45% (38,384 vs 26,559 stars). Harness is written in Go under Apache-2.0; jenkins is written in Java under MIT. Harness has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, jenkins 37%. jenkins was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (continuous-delivery, continuous-integration, hacktoberfest), 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 | jenkins | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 27K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 9.8K |
| 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 jenkins if
- You want the jenkins feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and jenkins 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 jenkins
Jenkins is an open source automation server built with Java and released under the MIT license. It lives in the continuous integration and continuous delivery ecosystem, where it has served as a central automation hub for roughly sixteen years. The project is developed in the open on GitHub, where it has accumulated 26,546 stars and 9,833 forks, and it is distributed through the official jenkins.io website alongside documentation, plugin listings, and release notes. Two release lines are maintained: a weekly line that carries all new features, improvements, and bug fixes, and a Long Term Support line that receive…
read the full jenkins overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Harness or jenkins more popular?
Harness has 38,384 GitHub stars and jenkins has 26,559. Harness has the larger community by that measure.
Are Harness and jenkins free?
Both are open source. Harness is licensed under Apache-2.0 and jenkins under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Harness and jenkins?
Harness is written in Go and jenkins in Java. 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 jenkins?
Choose Harness if you want the larger community (38,384 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose jenkins if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.