head to head · open source
Harness vs swiftwave
Harness has 38,378 GitHub stars, 3,397 forks, 106 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. swiftwave has 893 stars, 67 forks, 28 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. Harness leads on adoption by 4,198% (38,378 vs 893 stars). Harness is written in Go under Apache-2.0; swiftwave is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Harness has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, swiftwave 8%. Harness 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 | swiftwave | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 893 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 67 |
| 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 swiftwave if
- You want the swiftwave feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and swiftwave 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 swiftwave
Swiftwave is a self hosted, lightweight platform as a service written in Go that lets developers deploy and manage applications on their own servers, positioned as an open source alternative to Heroku, Netlify, and Render.
read the full swiftwave overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Harness or swiftwave more popular?
Harness has 38,378 GitHub stars and swiftwave has 893. Harness has the larger community by that measure.
Are Harness and swiftwave free?
Both are open source. Harness is licensed under Apache-2.0 and swiftwave under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Harness and swiftwave?
Harness is written in Go and swiftwave 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 swiftwave?
Choose Harness if you want the larger community (38,378 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose swiftwave if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.