head to head · open source
Harness vs piku
Harness has 38,378 GitHub stars, 3,397 forks, 106 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. piku has 6,605 stars, 157 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped 14 days ago. Harness leads on adoption by 481% (38,378 vs 6,605 stars). Harness is written in Go under Apache-2.0; piku is written in Python under MIT. Harness has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, piku 2%. 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 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Harness | piku | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 6.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 157 |
| 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 piku if
- You want the piku feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and piku 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 piku
piku is a small, MIT licensed platform as a service tool written in Python that lets developers deploy applications to their own servers with a git push , and it is aimed at people who want a Heroku like workflow on hardware as modest as a Raspberry Pi.
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 piku more popular?
Harness has 38,378 GitHub stars and piku has 6,605. Harness has the larger community by that measure.
Are Harness and piku free?
Both are open source. Harness is licensed under Apache-2.0 and piku under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Harness and piku?
Harness is written in Go and piku in Python. 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 piku?
Choose Harness if you want the larger community (38,378 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose piku if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.