head to head · open source
Harness vs kubevela
Harness has 38,378 GitHub stars, 3,397 forks, 106 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. kubevela has 7,897 stars, 1,068 forks, 269 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Harness leads on adoption by 386% (38,378 vs 7,897 stars). Harness is written in Go under Apache-2.0; kubevela is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Harness has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, kubevela 14%. kubevela 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, 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 | kubevela | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 7.9K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| 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 kubevela if
- You want the kubevela feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and kubevela 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 kubevela
KubeVela is an open source modern application delivery platform that runs on Kubernetes and makes deploying and operating applications across hybrid and multi cloud environments easier, faster and more reliable. It is written in Go, released under the Apache 2.0 license, and listed in the CNCF topic set alongside continuous delivery and control plane tooling. The project lives in the cloud native ecosystem, where it acts as a control plane that glues infrastructure capabilities together and orchestrates them as reusable modules. Its delivery model is built around the Open Application Model, with CUE used to defin…
read the full kubevela overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Harness or kubevela more popular?
Harness has 38,378 GitHub stars and kubevela has 7,897. Harness has the larger community by that measure.
Are Harness and kubevela free?
Both are open source. Harness is licensed under Apache-2.0 and kubevela under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Harness and kubevela?
Harness is written in Go and kubevela 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 kubevela?
Choose Harness if you want the larger community (38,378 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose kubevela if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.