head to head · open source
Harness vs NHost
Harness has 38,798 GitHub stars, 3,451 forks, 106 open issues and last shipped yesterday. NHost has 9,382 stars, 640 forks, 164 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Harness leads on adoption by 314% (38,798 vs 9,382 stars). Harness is written in Go under Apache-2.0; NHost is written in Go under MIT. Harness has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, NHost 7%. Harness 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Harness | NHost | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 9.4K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 640 |
| 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 NHost if
- You want the NHost feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and NHost 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 NHost
Nhost Quickstart • Website • Docs • Blog • X • Discord • Ask Nhost Guru (third party, unofficial) Nhost is an open source Firebase alternative with GraphQL, built with the following things in mind: Open Source GraphQL SQL Great Developer Experience Nhost consists of open source software: Database: PostgreSQL Instant GraphQL API: Hasura Authentication: Auth Storage: Storage Serverless Functions: Node.js (JavaScript and TypeScript) Nhost CLI for local development Architecture of Nhost Visit for the complete documentation. Get Started Option 1: Nhost Hosted Platform 1. Sign in to Nhost. 2. Create Nhost app. 3…
read the full NHost overview →
More in Developer Tools
Related comparisons
More Build & Deployment projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Build & Deployment field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Harness or NHost more popular?
Harness has 38,798 GitHub stars and NHost has 9,382. Harness has the larger community by that measure.
Are Harness and NHost free?
Both are open source. Harness is licensed under Apache-2.0 and NHost under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Harness and NHost?
Harness is written in Go and NHost 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 NHost?
Choose Harness if you want the larger community (38,798 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose NHost if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.