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AWS CodeBuild vs Harness comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

AWS CodeBuild
Ranking in Build Automation
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Harness
Ranking in Build Automation
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (12th), Cloud Cost Management (8th), Feature Management (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of AWS CodeBuild is 2.3%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Harness is 4.8%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Harness4.8%
AWS CodeBuild2.3%
Other92.9%
Build Automation
 

Featured Reviews

SomdipRoy - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at Skillnetinc
Has enabled automated deployments through continuous integration and supports multi-environment delivery
My recommendation for AWS CodeBuild to make it better for the next release would be something within AWS CodeBuild which can support the repository functions as well. It may not be as powerful as GitHub Actions, but it provides a very competitive price compared to GitHub Actions. GitHub Actions, if you want to use the YML CI/CD pipeline, gives a free tier of around three thousand hours per month. AWS CodeBuild is a little more expensive than that. However, if it supports the repository function as well along with it, then it will be a complete package. Everything would be in AWS, including the code versioning, code commit to the code infrastructure, to the code database, to the networking, and how the applications are accessed. Everything would be in one place, which would be very helpful. I believe AWS CodeBuild is a bit expensive because GitHub provides around three thousand minutes free, plus it has the free repository function as well. At the enterprise level, it charges maybe around nineteen dollars per user, though I do not remember exactly. In terms of AWS CodeBuild, I believe it is a bit expensive because it is providing only the deployment features. It is not providing the repository. In that comparison, I would say it is a little bit expensive.
MK
Technical Associate at ZS
Templatized pipelines have improved efficiency while limitations in code-based development remain
Harness UI can do a lot of good things. Harness's UI should not feel very complicated. At the current stage, it feels very commercialized and compared to other platforms such as Argo CD or Jenkins, which feel much more lively and much more simple. Infrastructure as code or pipeline as code is something that Harness severely lacks. There is not a lot of good support for pipeline as code, and I often find myself not using pipeline as code the way other platforms such as GitHub Actions or Jenkins integrate pipeline as code. Pipeline as code is definitely one of the disadvantages when it comes to Harness. Additionally, the entire platform feels very commercialized, which is something that a lot of developers, especially open-source enthusiasts, might not appreciate even within the organization. One of the very important key factors I observed was that there is no way to execute nested pipelines, which means that we cannot execute child pipelines within child pipelines and child pipelines even within those child pipelines. There is no way to execute nested pipeline execution, which may or may not be required based on the use case, but it is definitely one of those features that I wish the platform had.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most important thing is that it's self-contained in an AWS account, and it's all linked to the customer's AWS account."
"It works seamlessly with AWS Elastic Container Registry (ECR)."
"The solution provides good integrations."
"The tool is used to build and test code. I find its biggest advantages are elasticity and reliability. We can easily assign as many computing resources as needed to build our code, which is much simpler than traditional methods that require server upgrades. It's a serverless tool, so it's very flexible and elastic."
"The initial setup of CodeBuild is easy."
"One of the main features I value in CodeBuild compared to previous experiences, like using Jenkins, is its ability to handle tasks automatically with AWS, requiring only proper setup of the check file."
"Scalability is a great feature with AWS CodeBuild, because after deploying applications the service automatically scales up and down according to our AWS needs using load balancing, which makes managing applications much easier without significant interruptions."
"AWS CodeBuild's support for popular languages and tools has enhanced my productivity; it supports the three most popular stacks that are in the world: the Python stack, the Node.js stack or framework, and the Java framework, along with other technology stacks such as Ruby on Rails."
"Some of the best features of Harness include powerful CI/CD pipeline automation, intelligent deployment strategies, and building monitoring, and its automation capabilities significantly improve speed and reliability while saving time by reducing manual operational tasks and the number of employees needed for deployments."
"By adopting templates and various different pipelines across our own IDP platform, we have saved upwards of 30 to 40% of development time and also reduced risks of failures or error rates by upwards of 70%."
"Harness integrates all functions like execution pipelines, environment checks, and log monitoring in one place, making it convenient."
"Everything in Harness is configured and runs smoothly."
"The time to resolve issues has been cut by about thirty to thirty-five percent, while the time to deploy has actually been cut in half."
"The features of Harness are valuable, supporting rolling deployments, basic deployments, and blue-green deployments with zero downtime."
"Harness starts integrating with organizations, making everything automated without the need for manual interruption."
"Approximately seventy-five percent time was reduced in case of deployment and around sixty to sixty-five percent time was reduced while troubleshooting it."
 

Cons

"I believe AWS CodeBuild is a bit expensive because GitHub provides around three thousand minutes free, plus it has the free repository function as well."
"The front-end interface and the management are somewhat challenging, and there's a lot of space for improvement."
"Multiple clients have faced issues with pricing. After migrating from Azure to EC2, they were unexpectedly charged 100,000 rupees because the pricing details were not clearly visible."
"There have been times when CodeBuild has shown some instability, like bugs or breakdowns."
"While working on building images for multiple applications within a single script, I encountered an issue where looping functionality was not supported as expected."
"The deployment fails sometimes."
"One of the main challenges is that if the environment is not set up properly, it will result in issues such as image errors."
"There is no persistent storage or preservation of workspace between the builds."
"Harness is a very feature-rich platform, but the large number of modules can feel overwhelming for beginners as it requires a certain learning curve to understand module configurations and deployment pipelines."
"The initial setup can be complex and time-consuming, and the advanced features may require some learning time due to a steep learning curve."
"Infrastructure as code or pipeline as code is something that Harness severely lacks."
"Even with automation, there's a requirement for manual change requests for approvals."
"When integrating Harness with more than twenty applications in one place, it becomes less stable, causing improvements to be necessary."
"Harness setup and configurations could be made easier to configure, which would be helpful."
"One improvement I see for Harness is simplifying the configuration process for smaller teams or startups, as the platform offers powerful features that new users may require some time to understand."
"When deploying multiple components to multiple environments, like production and BCP, failures sometimes occur. Improvements are needed when deploying one component to one environment."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay a monthly licensing fee."
"AWS CodeBuild is free. We only pay for our code's compute resources during the build process. For example, if our code takes ten minutes to build, we only pay for those ten minutes of computing time. CodeDeploy and CodePipeline are free because they're serverless and don't require computing resources. CodeCommit has minimal costs for storing code."
"Despite the cost, it is worth the investment."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Media Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS CodeBuild?
The cost structure is affordable for most builds except macOS servers. Standard builds can utilize AWS EC2 servers for background operations. However, macOS or iOS builds require physical servers m...
What needs improvement with AWS CodeBuild?
My recommendation for AWS CodeBuild to make it better for the next release would be something within AWS CodeBuild which can support the repository functions as well. It may not be as powerful as G...
What is your primary use case for AWS CodeBuild?
My use of AWS CodeBuild is focused on the CI/CD part, which stands for continuous integration and continuous deployment. Basically, we write the code and then commit it into a repository, which cou...
What needs improvement with Harness?
There are some UI components that can be improved. The needed UI improvements include more graphs, more history, the ability to create pipelines through the UI, and more interactions, with UI compo...
What is your primary use case for Harness?
My main use case for Harness is to create pipelines, deploy applications, and manage security pipelines. I use Harness to deploy applications to EC2 instances and Kubernetes instances, and I create...
What advice do you have for others considering Harness?
My advice for others looking into using Harness is to use AI capabilities, create pipelines, and then use it to deploy. Harness is a good tool. I would rate this review a nine out of ten.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

CodeBuild
Armory
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Linedata, Openbank, Home Depot, Advanced
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS CodeBuild vs. Harness and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.