head to head · open source
Harness vs Semaphore
Harness has 38,378 GitHub stars, 3,397 forks, 106 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Semaphore has 1,601 stars, 88 forks, 178 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Harness leads on adoption by 2,297% (38,378 vs 1,601 stars). Harness is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Semaphore is written in Elixir under a custom or non-standard licence. Harness has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Semaphore 5%. Semaphore was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (build-pipelines, ci, continuous-delivery, continuous-integration), 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 | Semaphore | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | Elixir |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 88 |
| 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 Semaphore if
- You want the Semaphore feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Elixir
- You evaluated both and Semaphore 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 Semaphore
Semaphore is an open source continuous integration and continuous delivery platform that product teams install on their own infrastructure, or use as a hosted service, to build, test, and deploy software from a YAML based configuration.
read the full Semaphore overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Harness or Semaphore more popular?
Harness has 38,378 GitHub stars and Semaphore has 1,601. Harness has the larger community by that measure.
Are Harness and Semaphore free?
Both are open source. Harness is licensed under Apache-2.0, and Semaphore has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Harness and Semaphore?
Harness is written in Go and Semaphore in Elixir. 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 Semaphore?
Choose Harness if you want the larger community (38,378 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Semaphore if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.