head to head · open source
Harness vs loop-engineering
Harness has 38,384 GitHub stars, 3,398 forks, 106 open issues and last shipped yesterday. loop-engineering has 11,245 stars, 1,510 forks, 9 open issues and last shipped today. Harness leads on adoption by 241% (38,384 vs 11,245 stars). Harness is written in Go under Apache-2.0; loop-engineering is written in TypeScript under MIT. Harness has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, loop-engineering 13%. loop-engineering 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 | loop-engineering | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 11K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| 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 loop-engineering if
- You want the loop-engineering feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and loop-engineering 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 loop-engineering
loop engineering is an MIT licensed TypeScript pattern library, starter collection, and CLI for developers and platform teams who want to design loops that discover work, hand it to AI coding agents, verify the results, and persist state instead of typing the next prompt themselves.
read the full loop-engineering overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Harness or loop-engineering more popular?
Harness has 38,384 GitHub stars and loop-engineering has 11,245. Harness has the larger community by that measure.
Are Harness and loop-engineering free?
Both are open source. Harness is licensed under Apache-2.0 and loop-engineering under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Harness and loop-engineering?
Harness is written in Go and loop-engineering in TypeScript. 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 loop-engineering?
Choose Harness if you want the larger community (38,384 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose loop-engineering if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.