head to head · open source
Harness vs Woodpecker CI
Harness has 38,798 GitHub stars, 3,451 forks, 106 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Woodpecker CI has 8,097 stars, 734 forks, 371 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Harness leads on adoption by 379% (38,798 vs 8,097 stars). Harness is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Woodpecker CI is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Harness has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Woodpecker CI 9%. Harness was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (ci, 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 | Woodpecker CI | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 8.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 734 |
| 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 Woodpecker CI if
- You want the Woodpecker CI 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 Woodpecker CI 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 Woodpecker CI
Woodpecker Woodpecker is a simple, yet powerful CI/CD engine with great extensibility. Installation & Resources Woodpecker can be installed in various ways (see the Installation Instructions) and runs with SQLite as database by default. It requires around 100 MB of RAM (Server) and 30 MB (Agent) at runtime in idle mode. Support You can support the project by becoming a backer on Open Collective or via GitHub Sponsors. Documentation Our documentation can be found at . Translation We have a self hosted Weblate instance at translate.woodpecker ci.org. An overview of the current translation state is available at…
read the full Woodpecker CI overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Harness or Woodpecker CI more popular?
Harness has 38,798 GitHub stars and Woodpecker CI has 8,097. Harness has the larger community by that measure.
Are Harness and Woodpecker CI free?
Both are open source. Harness is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Woodpecker CI under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Harness and Woodpecker CI?
Harness is written in Go and Woodpecker CI 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 Woodpecker CI?
Choose Harness if you want the larger community (38,798 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Woodpecker CI if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.