GitLab vs Harness comparison

GitLab and Harness are both solutions in the Build Automation category. GitLab is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6, while Harness is ranked #10 with an average rating of 7.8. GitLab holds a 15.0% mindshare in BA, compared to Harness’s 7.5% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of GitLab users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Harness users who would recommend it.

GitLab

Read 85 GitLab reviews

5,016 Views
4,048 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Harness

Read 4 Harness reviews

2,108 Views
1,282 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

GitLab

Harness

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

GitLab and Harness compete in the software development domain. GitLab has the upper hand with its all-encompassing DevOps platform offering, contrasting with Harness's specialization in continuous delivery automation.

Features: GitLab delivers an integrated set of tools covering version control, continuous integration and delivery, and robust project management. Harness sets itself apart with its focus on simplifying continuous delivery, featuring automated rollbacks, feature flags, and insights into deployment efficiency.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: GitLab provides both self-managed and cloud-hosted deployment options, valued for flexibility and detailed documentation. Harness opts for a managed service, prioritizing simplicity in continuous delivery and offering responsive customer support.

Pricing and ROI: GitLab is more budget-friendly initially, offering a comprehensive DevOps solution that appeals to cost-conscious businesses. Harness, with potentially higher setup costs, aims to deliver long-term ROI by optimizing delivery processes through automation and efficiency gains.

To learn more, read our detailed GitLab vs. Harness Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

GitLab vs. Harness

June 2025

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Helped 860,592 peers since 2012

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

GitLab

Ranking in Build Automation

1st

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

7th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (10th), Release Automation (2nd), Rapid Application Development Software (11th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (5th), Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (2nd), Fuzz Testing Tools (2nd), DevSecOps (1st)

Harness

Ranking in Build Automation

10th

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

29th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Cost Management (12th)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of GitLab is 15.0%, down from 18.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Harness is 7.5%, up from 4.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Build Automation

Featured Reviews

Rohit Kesharwani

Manager, Engineering at 7-Eleven

Improved agility and time to market with CI/CD enhancements

The CI/CD pipelines in GitLab ( /products/gitlab-reviews ) are highly valuable. Another important feature is the single source of repository, allowing efficient repository management and source code management. GitLab provides manageability by allowing us to manage source code effectively through separate repositories. Additionally, GitLab enables the creation of individual CI/CD pipelines for each repository, making software more agile. By integrating GitLab as a DevOps platform, we have enhanced agility, improved our time to market, and different teams can work collaboratively on various projects.

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Linwei Yuan

Software Engineer at Citi

Streamline microservices deployment with integrated execution pipelines and comprehensive monitoring

Harness integrates all functions like execution pipelines, environment checks, and log monitoring in one place. It is very convenient since we have many microservices, so having one platform for all of them is beneficial. The dashboard allows me to monitor all core services' deployment status in one place, making it easier to find bugs and check logs.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"GitLab's best features are continuous integration and fast deployment."

"CI/CD is valuable for me."

"GitLab's source control is excellent."

"The stability of GitLab is impressive."

"It is very useful for reviews. We are using branch merging operations and full reset operations. It is also very useful for merging our code and tracking another branch. The graph diagrams of Git are very useful. Its interface is straightforward and not too complex for us."

"The solution's most valuable features are pipelines."

"I find the features and version control history to be most valuable for our development workflow. These aspects provide us with a clear view of changes and help us manage requests efficiently."

"The code merging capability is something that we use very frequently."

More GitLab pros

"The features of Harness are valuable, supporting rolling deployments, basic deployments, and blue-green deployments with zero downtime."

"It's a highly customizable DevOps tool."

"Harness starts integrating with organizations, making everything automated without the need for manual interruption."

"Harness integrates all functions like execution pipelines, environment checks, and log monitoring in one place, making it convenient."

"Harness integrates all functions like execution pipelines, environment checks, and log monitoring in one place."

Cons

"I'm new to GitLab, so I would appreciate more documentation about the code and commands."

"Regarding improvements, making task management is something that GitLab can potentially make easier, similar to what DevOps or Jira does."

"GitLab could consider introducing a code-scanning tool. Purchasing such tools from external markets can incur charges, which might not be favorable. Integrating these features into GitLab would streamline the pipeline and make it more convenient for users."

"I would like to see security increased in the future. A secure environment is very important."

"As GitLab is not perfect, what needs improvement in the solution is the Wiki feature of the groups or the repertories because currently, it's not searchable by default. You'll need an indexing service such as Elasticsearch to make it searchable, and that requires too much work, so for me, it's the main feature that should be improved in GitLab. In the next version of the solution, from the top of my head, the documentation could be improved. Besides the Wiki, it would be good if there's documentation that would be automatically generated based on the code repository. In other words, there should be some tutorials from GitLab for developers in the next release."

"The integration could be slightly better."

"I would like configuration of a YML file to be done via UI rather than a code file."

"It is a little complex to set up the pipelines within the solution."

More GitLab cons

"Even with automation, there's a requirement for manual change requests for approvals."

"I prefer the previous less compact UI version of Harness, which showed more details on the screen."

"There's also room for improvement in debugging pipeline issues, which can sometimes become complex."

"When integrating Harness with more than twenty applications in one place, it becomes less stable, causing improvements to be necessary."

"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

"GitLab is an open-source solution."

"The initial setup cost is excellent and you can add the premium features later."

"As I work in a vast enterprise, I'm unsure about the licensing cost for GitLab. It's the management team that takes care of that."

"There are different licensing options available, including a free limited-user license."

"GitLab's pricing is good compared to others on the market."

"The open-source version is very good and the commercial version is reasonably priced."

"The price of GitLab could be better, it is expensive."

"GitLab is comparatively expensive, but it provides value because it's feature-rich."

More GitLab pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

13%

Educational Organization

12%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

32%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about GitLab?

I find the features and version control history to be most valuable for our development workflow. These aspects provide us with a clear view of changes and help us manage requests efficiently.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GitLab?

The pricing and cost are on par with other tools and are neither too expensive nor cheap.

See all answers

What needs improvement with GitLab?

One significant feature we lack is the configuration that enforces code reviews, which simplifies the development life cycle. Unfortunately, this is available only at a higher license level than we...

See all answers

What do you like most about Harness?

It's a highly customizable DevOps tool.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Harness?

When deploying multiple components to multiple environments, like production and BCP, failures sometimes occur. Improvements are needed when deploying one component to one environment.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Harness?

Our primary use case for Harness ( /products/harness-reviews ) is as a deployment tool. Although I am not a DevOps engineer, my team uses Harness ( /products/harness-reviews ) for deployment purpos...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs GitLab

Compared 24% of the time

GitHub CoPilot vs GitLab

Compared 16% of the time

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs GitLab

Compared 6% of the time

TeamCity vs GitLab

Compared 5% of the time

Tekton vs GitLab

Compared 5% of the time

More GitLab Competitors

Jenkins vs Harness

Compared 20% of the time

GitHub Actions vs Harness

Compared 19% of the time

TeamCity vs Harness

Compared 11% of the time

Tekton vs Harness

Compared 11% of the time

Bamboo vs Harness

Compared 7% of the time

More Harness Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

GitLab

June 2025

Download GitLab product report

Buyer's Guide

Build Automation

June 2025

Download Harness product report

Also Known As

Fuzzit

Armory

Overview

GitLab is a complete DevOps platform that enables teams to collaborate and deliver software faster.

It provides a single application for the entire DevOps lifecycle, from planning and development to testing, deployment, and monitoring.

With GitLab, teams can streamline their workflows, automate processes, and improve productivity.

GitLab

Harness offers a comprehensive toolset for automating deployment processes and enhancing software update efficiency. It's lauded for its CI/CD capabilities, feature flagging, and real-time deployment monitoring. Key features include an intuitive UI, secret management, and robust rollback functionalities, all contributing to improved productivity and reduced errors in DevOps environments.

Harness

Sample Customers

1. NASA 2. IBM 3. Sony 4. Alibaba 5. CERN 6. Siemens 7. Volkswagen 8. ING 9. Ticketmaster 10. SpaceX 11. Adobe 12. Intuit 13. Autodesk 14. Rakuten 15. Unity Technologies 16. Pandora 17. Electronic Arts 18. Nordstrom 19. Verizon 20. Comcast 21. Philips 22. Deutsche Telekom 23. Orange 24. Fujitsu 25. Ericsson 26. Nokia 27. General Electric 28. Cisco 29. Accenture 30. Deloitte 31. PwC 32. KPMG

Linedata, Openbank, Home Depot, Advanced

Buyer's Guide

GitLab vs. Harness

June 2025

Free Report: GitLab vs. Harness

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