head to head · open source
Harness vs Semaphore
Harness has 38,798 GitHub stars, 3,451 forks, 106 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Semaphore has 1,631 stars, 101 forks, 178 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Harness leads on adoption by 2,279% (38,798 vs 1,631 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 6%. Harness 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 | ★ 39K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | Elixir |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 101 |
| 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 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 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 Semaphore
Semaphore Open Source CI/CD Platform Semaphore CI/CD helps product teams ship software faster, with quality and security. 🚀 Features Blazing fast CI/CD – Get your builds & deployments done in record time. Simple yet powerful – YAML based config, parallel execution, and more! Scales with you – From solo developers to massive engineering teams. Built for the modern cloud – Works seamlessly with containers, Kubernetes, and multi cloud environments. Installation Installing and running Semaphore is easy and only takes 10 30 minutes ⏱️ Choose your preferred installation method from our detailed guides: Semaphore…
read the full Semaphore overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Harness or Semaphore more popular?
Harness has 38,798 GitHub stars and Semaphore has 1,631. 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 (38,798 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.