head to head · open source
Harness vs trunk
Harness has 38,378 GitHub stars, 3,397 forks, 106 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. trunk has 4,391 stars, 322 forks, 136 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. Harness leads on adoption by 774% (38,378 vs 4,391 stars). Harness is written in Go under Apache-2.0; trunk is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Harness has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, trunk 7%. 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.
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Side by side
| Harness | trunk | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 4.4K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 322 |
| 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 trunk if
- You want the trunk feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and trunk 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 trunk
Trunk is a build and bundling tool for Rust applications that target WebAssembly for the web. It lives in the Rust and WebAssembly ecosystem, and the README describes it as a WASM web application bundler for Rust. The project uses a source HTML file as the entry point for building and bundling WASM, JavaScript snippets, and assets such as images, CSS, SCSS, and HTML.
read the full trunk overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Harness or trunk more popular?
Harness has 38,378 GitHub stars and trunk has 4,391. Harness has the larger community by that measure.
Are Harness and trunk free?
Both are open source. Harness is licensed under Apache-2.0 and trunk under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Harness and trunk?
Harness is written in Go and trunk in Rust. 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 trunk?
Choose Harness if you want the larger community (38,378 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose trunk if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.