head to head · open source
Harness vs sandboxd
Harness has 38,798 GitHub stars, 3,451 forks, 106 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sandboxd has 978 stars, 69 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Harness leads on adoption by 3,867% (38,798 vs 978 stars). Harness is written in Go under Apache-2.0; sandboxd is written in Go under MIT. Harness has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, sandboxd 7%. sandboxd was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (docker), 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 | sandboxd | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 978 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 69 |
| 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 sandboxd if
- You want the sandboxd feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and sandboxd 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 sandboxd
sandboxd Open source, self hosted AI app builder. Prompt it and a coding agent builds real apps in isolated sandboxes on your server — each live at a preview URL. You own the infra, code, and data. MIT. 🔥 Trend of the Day on Trendshift Prompt → a real, running app on your server, at its own URL. See it in action 👇 1 · Build from a prompt — an agent builds it in an isolated sandbox, live at a preview URL. 2 · Or run an existing app — n8n, Ghost, Grafana… 80+ curated apps, one click. 3 · Or drive the API — every action is a /v1 call, headless & scriptable. ▶ Try the live demo Click around a real console with…
read the full sandboxd overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Harness or sandboxd more popular?
Harness has 38,798 GitHub stars and sandboxd has 978. Harness has the larger community by that measure.
Are Harness and sandboxd free?
Both are open source. Harness is licensed under Apache-2.0 and sandboxd under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Harness and sandboxd?
Harness is written in Go and sandboxd 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 sandboxd?
Choose Harness if you want the larger community (38,798 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose sandboxd if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.