head to head · open source
Harness vs nx
Harness has 38,798 GitHub stars, 3,451 forks, 106 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nx has 29,443 stars, 2,973 forks, 490 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Harness leads on adoption by 32% (38,798 vs 29,443 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 | ★ 39K | ★ 29K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 3.0K |
| 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 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 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 nx
Smart Monorepos · Fast Builds Docs • Changelog • Blog • Courses • YouTube Nx is a monorepo solution for TypeScript and polyglot codebases. Built with Rust for performance, extensible via TypeScript. Caches what didn't change, runs only what's affected, and comes with an integrated CI solution. Start simple, scale as you grow. Quick Start Visit the Nx quickstart docs to get started. Why Nx? Incremental by design Run npx nx init in any npm/pnpm/yarn workspace. Nx picks up your existing package.json scripts, caches their outputs, and runs only what's affected. No changes to your setup required…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Harness or nx more popular?
Harness has 38,798 GitHub stars and nx has 29,443. 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 (38,798 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose nx if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.