VMware Harbor Registry is an open source, trusted cloud-native registry that stores, signs, and scans content. It enhances Docker distribution by adding functionalities such as security and identity management.
| Product | Mindshare (%) |
|---|---|
| VMware Harbor Registry | 3.9% |
| Harbor | 22.3% |
| JFrog Container Registry | 20.3% |
| Other | 53.5% |
It is designed to address challenges faced by users managing containerized content across distributed environments. Harbor extends Docker registry capabilities through its role-based access control, support for image replication, and integrated vulnerability scanning. By supporting external identity providers, it ensures seamless integration with existing infrastructures. Its focus is on delivering reliability and security, aiding organizations in ensuring compliance while scaling operations.
What features make VMware Harbor Registry valuable?In industries such as finance and healthcare, VMware Harbor Registry is implemented to ensure secure and compliant management of software containers. Its use in these sectors highlights the importance of rigorous security and efficiency, offering industry-specific solutions that address unique challenges in regulatory environments.
VMware Harbor Registry was previously known as VMware Harbor.
360 Total Security, OVHcloud, TalkingData, Trend Micro
| Author info | Rating | Review Summary |
|---|---|---|
| Associate Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees | 2.5 | I use Tanzu and VMware Harbor for containerizing pilot apps in Kubernetes, finding deployment automation helpful, though Harbor's image scanning is limited; I prefer Docker Hub's convenience and mostly work with Azure Kubernetes and CI/CD tools like SonarQube. |
| Senior Consultant at Mettler-Toledo International Inc. | 4.5 | I find VMware Harbor Registry lightweight with good vulnerability scanning and easy setup. Despite its excellent scalability, a recurring issue with overwritten default credentials frequently causes stability problems, requiring restarts. |
I am mainly deploying pilot applications in my region where many applications are more traditional and have normally used traditional frameworks. Because of this, they want to implement containerization and a reliable infrastructure platform for operations, which is Kubernetes.
We help containerize their application pilots, which is basically some sort of internal app before we try to containerize their production app.
Tanzu is a VMware Kubernetes engine that we utilize.
Docker and VMware Harbor Registry for image registry are valuable features.
It helps with deployment. In terms of automation to deployment, it is very convenient as long as your application is containerized into a Docker image. It is very convenient to automate consistently deploying it to a Kubernetes environment to see how it performs. It definitely improves and streamlines the testing process.
I never determined the accuracy of the scanning because I did not utilize this feature.
Unfortunately, I have limited experience as I have only helped utilize from a client's platform that installed it before.
Regarding VMware Harbor Registry, I did not use it extensively, so I cannot provide detailed feedback. I did not use any specialized use cases of the particular product.
I do not think they have anything to improve. It is more about the difference in the product because VMware Harbor Registry is installed mostly on-premises as an image registry, whereas Docker Hub is more convenient and online. One has on-premises secure security, and the other offers convenience because it is online.
The initial navigation required learning, but that is more of a developer issue rather than a product issue.
The image scanning in VMware Harbor Registry is quite limited compared to other specialized image scanning tools. While it is convenient to have image scanning packaged with VMware Harbor Registry, it is not as comprehensive in terms of security.
I have had a couple of experiences with the solution.
I am a fresh graduate and have only been working with containerization and CI/CD focusing on new technology.
I prefer Docker Hub as an image registry as it is easily accessible because I do not need a privatized on-premises installed image registry.
Neutral
I only managed to perform the setup but did not evaluate the application extensively as I do not develop it.
I help people deploy to different types of Kubernetes platforms and normally practice internally with GKE.
I rate it a five but do not have a strong opinion on that.
I have not explored alternate solutions.
I am currently working more with CI/CD rather than Kubernetes.
Primarily, we deploy to Azure Kubernetes, Rancher, or Tanzu.
We utilize VMware Harbor Registry's image scanning capabilities along with SonarQube, though SonarQube is more focused on code security.
VMware Harbor Registry provides a secure way to have your own image registry through partnership.
I rate this solution 5 out of 10.
I have been working with the VMware Harbor Registry for three years.
I am currently using version 2.93 of the VMware Harbor Registry.
For Harbor, we use both open source and enterprise versions; we use the open source to ship the application and it acts as the private registry where Kubernetes can access the Docker images.
I am an end user as well.
We use the on-prem version of VMware Harbor Registry.
I have one user for VMware Harbor Registry.
There are some POCs being done, so maybe in the future I will increase the usage of VMware Harbor Registry.
The most valuable features of VMware Harbor Registry are that it's lightweight and the in-built Trivy solution.
I find the in-built Trivy solution valuable mainly for the vulnerability scanning that it publishes.
For image scanning in particular, Trivy provides a comprehensive view regarding the scanning.
The measurable benefits I have seen from VMware Harbor Registry include the easy setup, the installation, the offline installation process using tarballs, and the speed in which it completes.
The challenge I encountered while using the VMware Harbor Registry is that sometimes the default credentials get overwritten, so we have to restart Harbor to make it function as before.
The default credential rewrite is one of the major pains with Harbor, so this has to be improved.
They can expand more into the known issue section and support for the older versions.
We did check the documentation as well as some of the issues mentioned in GitHub, but they weren't that useful.
I have been working with the VMware Harbor Registry for three years.
For Harbor, it is just one person involved in deployment and maintenance, mainly because of the credentials getting overwritten issue, but apart from that, it's pretty stable.
I would rate the stability of this solution a seven.
The seven rating is because of the issue with the default credentials getting overwritten, so every three or four days we have to system CTL restart Harbor to make it function properly.
We've not had any challenges with the scalability of VMware Harbor Registry, so I'll give it a 10.
I chose VMware Harbor Registry over other options because the open source version has offline installers using the tarball.
I would rate the initial setup of VMware Harbor Registry a 10.
It was straightforward since it had good documentation that provided the steps regarding how to set up the self-signed certificates.
Right now, we've automated the setup for VMware Harbor Registry, so it would hardly take about 20 seconds to install, and about five minutes to push all the images.
It's totally free for us.
Other areas of Harbor are fine for me.
My deployment process for Harbor is the same as we do in JFrog, it's the same process.
I would rate VMware Harbor Registry a nine.
