head to head · open source
Harness vs xmake
Harness has 38,798 GitHub stars, 3,451 forks, 106 open issues and last shipped yesterday. xmake has 12,286 stars, 965 forks, 255 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Harness leads on adoption by 216% (38,798 vs 12,286 stars). Harness is written in Go under Apache-2.0; xmake is written in Lua under Apache-2.0. Harness has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, xmake 8%. 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 | xmake | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 12K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Lua |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 965 |
| 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 xmake if
- You want the xmake feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Lua
- You evaluated both and xmake 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 xmake
xmake A cross platform build utility based on Lua Modern C/C++ build tool: Simple, Fast, Powerful dependency package integration Support this project Support this project by becoming a sponsor. Your logo will show up here with a link to your website. 🙏 Introduction (中文) What is Xmake? 1. Xmake is a cross platform build utility based on the Lua scripting language. 2. Xmake is very lightweight and has no dependencies outside of the standard library. 3. Uses the xmake.lua file to maintain project builds with a simple and readable syntax. Xmake can be used to directly build source code (like with Make or Ninja), or…
read the full xmake overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Harness or xmake more popular?
Harness has 38,798 GitHub stars and xmake has 12,286. Harness has the larger community by that measure.
Are Harness and xmake free?
Both are open source. Harness is licensed under Apache-2.0 and xmake under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Harness and xmake?
Harness is written in Go and xmake in Lua. 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 xmake?
Choose Harness if you want the larger community (38,798 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose xmake if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.