head to head · open source
Harness vs xmake
Harness has 38,378 GitHub stars, 3,397 forks, 106 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. xmake has 12,220 stars, 954 forks, 255 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Harness leads on adoption by 214% (38,378 vs 12,220 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 | ★ 38K | ★ 12K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Lua |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 954 |
| 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 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 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 xmake
Xmake is a cross platform build utility and package manager, written in Lua and licensed under Apache 2.0, that takes a single xmake.lua project file and turns it into builds for desktop, mobile, BSD, Wasm and other targets — it is aimed at C, C++, Objective C and mixed toolchain developers who want Make/Ninja style building, CMake/Meson style project generation, and Vcpkg/Conan style dependency handling from one tool.
read the full xmake overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Harness or xmake more popular?
Harness has 38,378 GitHub stars and xmake has 12,220. 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 (38,378 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.