GitLab vs Harness comparison

GitLab and Harness are both solutions in the Build Automation category. GitLab is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.2, while Harness is ranked #7 with an average rating of 7.7. GitLab holds a 9.6% mindshare in BA, compared to Harness’s 5.8% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of GitLab users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Harness users who would recommend it.

GitLab

Read 88 GitLab reviews

17,371 Views
3,822 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Harness

Read 6 Harness reviews

2,467 Views
1,875 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: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

GitLab vs. Harness

December 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 879,422 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:

ROI

Sentiment score

5.9

GitLab boosts ROI by enhancing DevOps efficiency, time-saving automation, software security, and user satisfaction through broad project adoption.

Sentiment score

9.1

Harness enhances deployment efficiency, reducing release times, improving processes, and decreasing failures, saving up to 40% development time.

Migrating to GitLab is bringing time-saving benefits, and everything is easier to automate.

reviewer2603940

IT Manager at a tech company with 5,001-10,000 employees

We have saved time significantly, reducing deployment time from four hours to five minutes per deployment.

Andrea PICCININI

IT Software Architect at ANAC - Autorità Nazionale Anticorruzione

For more quotes and insights, download the GitLab report

By adopting templates and various different pipelines across our own IDP platform, we have saved upwards of 30 to 40% of development time.

Manav Kanduri

Technical Associate at ZS

With Harness, the release process decreased from three or four hours to one or two hours, making deployments much quicker.

Linwei Yuan

Software Engineer at Citi

For more quotes and insights, download the Harness report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.5

GitLab support varies by subscription, with paid users satisfied, while free users often use forums or internal resources.

Sentiment score

7.3

Organizations rely on internal teams for incidents with Harness, benefiting from efficient communication and minimal external support needs.

We have rarely needed to escalate issues to technical support since GitLab usually runs seamlessly.

Gaurav Chandel

AWS DevOps/ Site Reliability Engineer at Tata Consultancy

I have interacted with architects for some advice during the implementation, and they were prompt in their response.

Mikhael Ibrahim

Platform Engineer & Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

I have had meetings where they taught me, explained things, and provided guidance for starting from scratch.

reviewer2603940

IT Manager at a tech company with 5,001-10,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the GitLab report

We have rarely faced issues with Harness tech support.

SAURAB K GANGURDE

Senior AWS Consultant at Quantum Integrators

We have been receiving incident reports whenever an incident occurs on Harness, and they are usually quick to respond.

Manav Kanduri

Technical Associate at ZS

For more quotes and insights, download the Harness report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.3

GitLab is praised for adaptability, handling diverse workloads and large architectures smoothly, though some on-premises scalability issues remain.

Sentiment score

7.4

Harness is scalable for large enterprises, though stability issues may arise with integrations exceeding 20 applications.

It has all the features required for our coding and deployment needs, which makes it scalable to our changing requirements.

Sarfaraz Khan

Senior Application Developer at IBM

We're transitioning to OpenShift for future scalability with increased user numbers.

Mikhael Ibrahim

Platform Engineer & Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

For scaling, other deployment options from GitLab's side need to be adopted.

Rohit Kesharwani

Manager, Engineering at 7-Eleven

For more quotes and insights, download the GitLab report

Our entire organization uses it with hundreds of applications, and it supports this scale effectively.

Ravi Hanok

Senior Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

It is able to work on our infrastructure side, which is EKS, and we are able to handle our organization growth effectively for an enterprise use case.

Manav Kanduri

Technical Associate at ZS

When I integrated Harness to more than 20 applications in one place, it becomes less stable.

Linwei Yuan

Software Engineer at Citi

For more quotes and insights, download the Harness report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

8.1

Users praise GitLab for stability and reliability with minimal downtime, highlighting its strong performance and high stability ratings.

Sentiment score

7.0

Harness is stable with prompt support, though integration of multiple applications may reduce stability, and occasional downtime occurs.

I have not encountered any performance or stability issues with GitLab so far.

Gaurav Chandel

AWS DevOps/ Site Reliability Engineer at Tata Consultancy

The updates are frequent and demanding, happening at least once a week due to security reasons.

Andrew Schetinin

Chief Technology Officer at Acclym

We raised a request with GitLab support, but they were unable to help because they could not find the root cause of what went wrong.

AvdheshSharma

Assistant Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the GitLab report

We have rarely faced issues with Harness tech support.

SAURAB K GANGURDE

Senior AWS Consultant at Quantum Integrators

Harness is decently stable.

Manav Kanduri

Technical Associate at ZS

For more quotes and insights, download the Harness report

Room For Improvement

GitLab users want better integrations, documentation, project management, intuitive pipelines, enhanced security, user-friendly interface, and simplified pricing.

Harness should streamline setup, enhance security and stability, simplify configurations, and revamp the UI to outperform competitors.

It would be beneficial to have a user-friendly interface for setting up these configurations, instead of just writing YAML files.

reviewer2603940

IT Manager at a tech company with 5,001-10,000 employees

It is essential to conduct proper testing, such as unit tests and code coverage, within the SDLC pipelines.

Rohit Kesharwani

Manager, Engineering at 7-Eleven

GitLab can improve its user interface to make conflict resolution more user-friendly.

Sarfaraz Khan

Senior Application Developer at IBM

For more quotes and insights, download the GitLab report

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.

Manav Kanduri

Technical Associate at ZS

Previously, when deploying a version that had been deployed successfully before, it sometimes failed upon trying again, which seems to be an intermittent issue about stability.

Linwei Yuan

Software Engineer at Citi

When deploying multiple components to multiple environments, like production and BCP, failures sometimes occur.

Ravi Hanok

Senior Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Harness report

Setup Cost

GitLab offers a free tier, with Premium at $19 and Ultimate at $99 per user monthly, plus optional CI/CD costs.

Even when working in other small organizations, we opted for GitLab as it was cost-efficient.

Sarfaraz Khan

Senior Application Developer at IBM

The pricing of GitLab is reasonable, aligning with what I consider to be average compared to competitors.

reviewer2603940

IT Manager at a tech company with 5,001-10,000 employees

The price is high, and it limits user accessibility.

Andrea PICCININI

IT Software Architect at ANAC - Autorità Nazionale Anticorruzione

For more quotes and insights, download the GitLab report

From what I understand with respect to Harness, licensing and setup costs were relatively low for an enterprise, and the pricing was more catered toward enterprises who would invest in the technology.

Manav Kanduri

Technical Associate at ZS

For more quotes and insights, download the Harness report

Valuable Features

GitLab excels in CI/CD pipelines, usability, integration, and automation, enhancing collaboration, productivity, and efficient DevOps workflows.

Harness simplifies code deployment with automation, visual tools, AI error detection, and secure, downtime-free deployment methods.

As we implement automated testing and DevSecOps, it speeds up the process by forty to sixty percent.

Mikhael Ibrahim

Platform Engineer & Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

The Ultimate version offers enhanced features for security scanning through DAST and SAST analysis, which have greatly benefitted our project workflow.

Andrea PICCININI

IT Software Architect at ANAC - Autorità Nazionale Anticorruzione

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.

Rohit Kesharwani

Manager, Engineering at 7-Eleven

For more quotes and insights, download the GitLab report

Harness uses AI to suggest errors in case of deployment failures.

Ravi Hanok

Senior Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

The best features in Harness are its user-friendliness and setup configuration.

SAURAB K GANGURDE

Senior AWS Consultant at Quantum Integrators

One of the best features Harness offers is the ability to templatize pipelines.

Manav Kanduri

Technical Associate at ZS

For more quotes and insights, download the Harness report

Categories and Ranking

GitLab

Ranking in Build Automation

1st

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

8th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (12th), Release Automation (2nd), Rapid Application Development Software (10th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (5th), Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (2nd), Fuzz Testing Tools (2nd), DevSecOps (1st)

Harness

Ranking in Build Automation

7th

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

17th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Cost Management (8th), Feature Management (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of GitLab is 9.6%, down from 17.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Harness is 5.8%, up from 5.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Build Automation Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
GitLab	9.6%
Harness	5.8%
Other	84.6%

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 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.

Read full review

Manav Kanduri

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.

Read full review

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

29%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	36
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	43

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?

We are currently using general GitLab, not GitLab Premium.

See all answers

What needs improvement with GitLab?

GitLab can be improved by being more responsive in the UI and offering better pricing for premium features, which would be useful for small startups. While GitLab's CI/CD is powerful, it is somewha...

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?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Harness?

Harness has been implemented in our organization for one of our clients for approximately 8 to 10 months. Harness is particularly utilized for our infrastructure provisioning pipelines and our RITM...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs GitLab

Compared 48% of the time

GitHub CoPilot vs GitLab

Compared 7% of the time

SonarQube vs GitLab

Compared 4% of the time

Tekton vs GitLab

Compared 3% of the time

UrbanCode Deploy vs GitLab

Compared 1% of the time

More GitLab Competitors

GitHub Actions vs Harness

Compared 19% of the time

Jenkins vs Harness

Compared 10% of the time

TeamCity vs Harness

Compared 8% of the time

Tekton vs Harness

Compared 8% of the time

SonarQube vs Harness

Compared 6% of the time

More Harness Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

GitLab

December 2025

Download GitLab product report

Buyer's Guide

Harness

December 2025

Download Harness product report

Also Known As

Fuzzit

Armory

Overview

GitLab offers a secure and user-friendly platform for CI/CD pipeline management, code repository control, and collaboration, enhancing development speed and efficiency. It facilitates automation with extensive customization and tool integration, ideal for DevOps processes.

GitLab supports source code management, version control, and collaborative development. It's frequently used in CI/CD processes to automate builds and deployments while integrating DevOps practices. GitLab allows companies to manage repositories, automate pipelines, conduct code reviews, and maintain development lifecycles. The platform supports infrastructure and configuration management, enabling efficient code collaboration, deployment automation, and comprehensive repository handling. Many organizations commit and deploy developed code using GitLab's capabilities.

What are GitLab's most valuable features?

CI/CD Pipeline Management: Streamlines development through automated testing and deployment.
User-Friendly Interface: Ensures ease of collaboration and task automation.
Code Merging and Branching: Facilitates smooth code integration and version control.
Security Platform: Provides strong security features for safe development.
Tool Integration: Enhances functionality with diverse tool integration.

What benefits should users evaluate?

Development Speed: Accelerates processes through automation.
Collaboration Ease: Simplifies team interactions and workflow.
Customization Options: Offers extensive personalization for specific needs.
Comprehensive Documentation: Provides detailed guidance for users.
Secure Platform: Maintains integrity with robust security features.

In specific industries, GitLab serves as a backbone for source code management and CI/CD implementation. Companies leverage its capabilities for infrastructure management and deployment automation, thus streamlining project delivery timelines. Its ability to handle configuration management and code repositories effectively aids in maintaining development lifecycles, making it a preferred choice for organizations committed to enhancing their DevOps practices.

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

December 2025

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