head to head · open source
Harness vs midway
Harness has 38,378 GitHub stars, 3,397 forks, 106 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. midway has 7,742 stars, 585 forks, 118 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Harness leads on adoption by 396% (38,378 vs 7,742 stars). Harness is written in Go under Apache-2.0; midway is written in TypeScript under MIT. Harness has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, midway 8%. midway 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 | midway | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 7.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 585 |
| 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 midway if
- You want the midway feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and midway 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 midway
Midway is an open source Node.js framework for building serverless services, traditional applications, microservices, and mini program backends. It is written in TypeScript and released under the MIT license, and it has been developed for roughly eight years, with the most recent push in September 2026. The project lives in the Node.js ecosystem and positions itself as a cloud integrated framework for front end and full stack developers, with integrations for React and Vue.
read the full midway overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Harness or midway more popular?
Harness has 38,378 GitHub stars and midway has 7,742. Harness has the larger community by that measure.
Are Harness and midway free?
Both are open source. Harness is licensed under Apache-2.0 and midway under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Harness and midway?
Harness is written in Go and midway 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 midway?
Choose Harness if you want the larger community (38,378 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose midway if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.