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GitLab 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.2
GitLab increases ROI by streamlining automation, speeding deployments, enhancing security, and lowering costs, boosting DevOps productivity and adoption.
Sentiment score
9.0
Harness streamlines deployments, boosting efficiency, reducing errors, and lowering costs, validating its licensing investment through automation.
Regarding release frequency, previously we had one to two releases per week, but now we achieve daily or on-demand releases, resulting in a three to five-fold increase in release frequency.
Site Reliability Engineer at Granicus Inc.
Migrating to GitLab is bringing time-saving benefits, and everything is easier to automate.
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.
IT Software Architect at ANAC - Autorità Nazionale Anticorruzione
By adopting templates and various different pipelines across our own IDP platform, we have saved upwards of 30 to 40% of development time.
Technical Associate at ZS
Time is saved because we now save engineering time. Before, it required two to three engineers actively monitoring production during deployments, but after starting to use Harness, there is zero or minimal manual monitoring.
Site Reliability Engineer at Granicus Inc.
With Harness, the release process decreased from three or four hours to one or two hours, making deployments much quicker.
Software Engineer at Citi
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
GitLab users appreciate stable service and solid paid support but note inconsistency and self-reliance challenges for free tiers.
Sentiment score
7.8
Users appreciate Harness support's responsiveness and effectiveness, praising timely incident reports, proactive notifications, and helpful communication.
We have rarely needed to escalate issues to technical support since GitLab usually runs seamlessly.
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.
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.
IT Manager at a tech company with 5,001-10,000 employees
We have rarely faced issues with Harness tech support.
Senior AWS Consultant at Quantum Integrators
Harness customer support is really helpful anytime I try to reach out; they are available to assist with any issues I am facing.
Site Reliability Engineer at Granicus Inc.
We have been receiving incident reports whenever an incident occurs on Harness, and they are usually quick to respond.
Technical Associate at ZS
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
GitLab is scalable and suited for cloud setups, though on-premises deployments might present challenges requiring additional expertise.
Sentiment score
7.7
Harness excels in scalability, supporting extensive applications, though performance may drop with over 20 integrations in enterprise settings.
It has all the features required for our coding and deployment needs, which makes it scalable to our changing requirements.
Senior Application Developer at IBM
We're transitioning to OpenShift for future scalability with increased user numbers.
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.
Manager, Engineering at 7-Eleven
Our entire organization uses it with hundreds of applications, and it supports this scale effectively.
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.
Technical Associate at ZS
When I integrated Harness to more than 20 applications in one place, it becomes less stable.
Software Engineer at Citi
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
GitLab is highly reliable with minimal bugs, occasional slowdowns, and generally supports teams with consistent, stable performance.
Sentiment score
7.2
Harness is stable and reliable, with minor integration issues and proactive communication during occasional downtime enhancing user experience.
I have not encountered any performance or stability issues with GitLab so far.
AWS DevOps/ Site Reliability Engineer at Tata Consultancy
The updates are frequent and demanding, happening at least once a week due to security reasons.
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.
Assistant Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
We have rarely faced issues with Harness tech support.
Senior AWS Consultant at Quantum Integrators
Harness is decently stable.
Technical Associate at ZS
 

Room For Improvement

GitLab users seek better AWS integration, improved CI/CD, enhanced documentation, security, and deployment support, with interface and cost concerns.
Harness needs streamlined setup, better security, improved automation, and flexible pricing to enhance efficiency and user experience.
It would be beneficial to have a user-friendly interface for setting up these configurations, instead of just writing YAML files.
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.
Manager, Engineering at 7-Eleven
GitLab can improve its user interface to make conflict resolution more user-friendly.
Senior Application Developer at IBM
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.
Technical Associate at ZS
An improvement idea is better guided onboarding with more opinionated defaults and examples.
Site Reliability Engineer at Granicus Inc.
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.
Software Engineer at Citi
 

Setup Cost

GitLab offers free and paid plans; Premium and Ultimate tiers provide advanced features but can be costly.
Even when working in other small organizations, we opted for GitLab as it was cost-efficient.
Senior Application Developer at IBM
The pricing of GitLab is reasonable, aligning with what I consider to be average compared to competitors.
IT Manager at a tech company with 5,001-10,000 employees
The price is high, and it limits user accessibility.
IT Software Architect at ANAC - Autorità Nazionale Anticorruzione
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.
Technical Associate at ZS
 

Valuable Features

GitLab excels in CI/CD, integration, and security, offering intuitive features and strong community support, enhancing team collaboration and efficiency.
Harness simplifies deployment with automation, AI-driven error handling, and intuitive design, enhancing safety, visibility, and efficiency for microservices.
As we implement automated testing and DevSecOps, it speeds up the process by forty to sixty percent.
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.
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.
Manager, Engineering at 7-Eleven
Harness uses AI to suggest errors in case of deployment failures.
Senior Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Meantime to recovery (MTTR) improved from 30 to 60 minutes before Harness to 5 to 10 minutes now.
Site Reliability Engineer at Granicus Inc.
The best features in Harness are its user-friendliness and setup configuration.
Senior AWS Consultant at Quantum Integrators
 

Categories and Ranking

GitLab
Ranking in Build Automation
1st
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (11th), Release Automation (2nd), Rapid Application Development Software (11th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (4th), Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (2nd), Fuzz Testing Tools (2nd), DevSecOps (1st)
Harness
Ranking in Build Automation
7th
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
16th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Cost Management (9th), 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
ProductMarket Share (%)
GitLab9.6%
Harness5.8%
Other84.6%
Build Automation
 

Featured Reviews

BasilJiji - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Role-based workflows have transformed daily deployments and improve team collaboration
GitLab has role-based access control, so when a team member needs to make a code change, they cannot directly apply it to the environment but must put in a merge request. Once a senior reviews the code and approves it, then it is implemented across the environment, making it safer and allowing everyone to experience the process. The best features GitLab offers are version control and automation, which are the major things that stand out to me. When it comes to access, the login is very smooth, with just one login integrated with our Okta, allowing everyone to log in easily. Deployments become much easier, and that is how GitLab helps. The automation features make my work easier because we use a tool called AWX, which is connected to GitLab. Whenever we run a job on AWX, it directly checks the code and uses it. Since the code is not preserved locally but kept in the cloud, it is safe and nobody can tamper with it. When it comes to safety, that is a major thing. Automation features allow the code to be accessed from any tools we use, so the jobs we run are helping tremendously and doing their work perfectly. For pipeline tasks, we have created a significant amount of pipelines, which are all hosted in GitLab. Running the pipelines has become much easier, and they are doing a perfect job, helping tremendously in our day-to-day activities. GitLab has positively impacted my organization because previously we stored code locally on servers, leading to many risks. Since GitLab came into our environment, our integration and deployments became much easier, helping our work become much smoother. Improvements from GitLab have led to better team collaboration because when several people are working, they can all edit the code and submit it as a merge request, and once approved, it reflects directly to the main branch. Many can work at the same time. When it comes to deployments, deploying has become much faster since we started using GitLab, and even if errors occur, we can spot them easily and troubleshoot, which has helped tremendously.
reviewer2787357 - PeerSpot reviewer
Site Reliability Engineer at Granicus Inc.
Automated delivery has made production releases safer and has reduced deployment incidents
The first point for improvement is the steep learning curve, where concepts such as services, environment, pipelines, and templates take time to understand. New users often need training before becoming productive, resulting in slower initial onboarding compared to simpler CD tools. An improvement idea is better guided onboarding with more opinionated defaults and examples. The second improvement can be on UI complexity and navigation; the UI can feel cluttered with many options and finding past executions, logs, or specific settings sometimes takes extra clicks, leading to small but noticeable productivity loss. Simplified UI views for common workflows and improved search and filtering could help. I also see cost and licensing as potential areas for improvement, as pricing can feel high for small teams and advanced features are tied to higher tiers, which may limit adoption for startups or smaller organizations. Flexible pricing models and more essential features in lower tiers could address this issue.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business36
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise46
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Large Enterprise7
 

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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GitLab?
We are currently using general GitLab, not GitLab Premium.
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...
What do you like most about Harness?
It's a highly customizable DevOps tool.
What needs improvement with Harness?
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,...
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Fuzzit
Armory
 

Overview

 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about GitLab vs. Harness and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,315 professionals have used our research since 2012.