head to head · open source
Harness vs nx
Harness has 38,378 GitHub stars, 3,397 forks, 106 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. nx has 29,349 stars, 3,002 forks, 490 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Harness leads on adoption by 31% (38,378 vs 29,349 stars). Harness is written in Go under Apache-2.0; nx is written in TypeScript under MIT. Harness has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, nx 10%. nx was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (hacktoberfest), 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 | nx | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 29K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 3.0K |
| 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 nx if
- You want the nx feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and nx 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 nx
Nx is an MIT licensed monorepo platform for TypeScript and polyglot codebases that caches unchanged work, runs only affected tasks, and ships an integrated CI solution aimed at both developers and autonomous AI agents.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Harness or nx more popular?
Harness has 38,378 GitHub stars and nx has 29,349. Harness has the larger community by that measure.
Are Harness and nx free?
Both are open source. Harness is licensed under Apache-2.0 and nx under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Harness and nx?
Harness is written in Go and nx in TypeScript. 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 nx?
Choose Harness if you want the larger community (38,378 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose nx if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.