Harness vs Tekton comparison

Harness and Google are both solutions in the Build Automation category. Harness is ranked #10 with an average rating of 7.7, while Google is ranked #2 with an average rating of 7.8. Harness holds a 6.6% mindshare in BA, compared to Google’s 12.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Harness users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of Google users who would recommend it.

Harness

Read 3 Harness reviews

2,131 Views
1,455 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Tekton

Read 36 Tekton reviews

4,811 Views
3,186 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Harness

Tekton

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

Harness and Tekton compete in the CI/CD platform market. Harness often gains the upper hand due to its ease of use and robust features, while Tekton appeals to teams needing high customization.

Features: Harness provides automated Canary and Blue-Green deployments, intuitive cloud cost management, and straightforward UI for simplified workflows. Tekton offers pipeline modularity and integrates seamlessly with existing DevOps tools, emphasizing flexibility and adaptability. Harness is user-friendly, whereas Tekton serves teams craving customization.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Harness offers a fast deployment model with extensive customer support, making it suitable for teams with limited technical resources. Tekton requires a technical setup but fosters a community-driven approach, benefiting teams with internal expertise and innovation. Harness's strong customer service and detailed guides provide an advantage.

Pricing and ROI: Harness involves a higher setup cost, offering clear ROI through reduced deployment time and minimized risks. Tekton, being open-source, presents a low initial cost but demands investment in development resources for complex pipelines. Harness focuses on managed efficiency, while Tekton's affordability comes with increased in-house management requirements.

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

Buyer's Guide

Harness vs. Tekton

April 2025

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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

Harness

Ranking in Build Automation

10th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (31st), Cloud Cost Management (15th)

Tekton

Ranking in Build Automation

2nd

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of Harness is 6.6%, up from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tekton is 12.3%, up from 10.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Build Automation

Featured Reviews

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.

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AjayKrishna

Senior Software Engineer at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees

If you're dealing with many applications and need a reliable, scalable, and efficient system, I'd recommend this solution

Tekton's most important feature is its cloud-native nature. Unlike Jenkins, which may not scale as efficiently, Tekton's CI pipeline can automatically scale up to handle increased workload demands without needing manual adjustments. Another important aspect is the level of customization offered by Tekton. Each task in the CI pipeline can be customized independently, allowing developers to write code in various languages like shell scripting, Java, or Python and incorporate them into the pipeline as needed. This level of abstraction and customization greatly benefits developers in creating efficient CI pipelines. Also, it can be challenging to understand the logs and troubleshoot issues without clear guidance. It's not always easy to reach technical support and get immediate answers. In my opinion, improvement in this area would be beneficial.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

"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."

"It's a highly customizable DevOps tool."

"Its seamless integration with Kubernetes, being built on top of it and utilizing Custom Resource Definitions, ensures a smooth experience within Kubernetes environments exclusively."

"Tekton's inclusion in Kubernetes deployment offers better visibility on how Tekton is performing within a cluster. It is lightweight and not as heavy as Jenkins to maintain."

"The ability to scale is valuable."

"The 'promote' feature is beneficial as it simplifies deployment processes by allowing easy promotion of applications to different environments without needing to re-run CI/CD processes."

"It is an open-source tool, which makes it highly adaptable."

"The tool offers flexibility and compatibility."

"I like the branching and visualization tools for the pipeline."

"Tekton allows you to categorize tasks according to your needs and minimizes the amount of code needed."

More Tekton pros

Cons

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

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

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

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

"One area for improvement is the number of CRDs created during installation. Tekton currently creates 10 to 11 CRDs, which can be overwhelming."

"Improvements could include introducing a UI-based pipeline development feature, such as drag and drop, which would help individuals with limited technical knowledge start building pipelines."

"It would be better if Tekton could show the YAML file while it is running, similar to GitHub pipelines, to provide more visibility on what's happening."

"The product's scalability can be challenging when multiple users access it simultaneously."

"If you are a beginner, then accessing the flexibility part can be overwhelming. We think the learning curve of the tool is steep, especially for those who are not already familiar with Kubernetes."

"RBAC is really needed for Tekton."

"The product's version update management process needs improvement."

"Tekton is a good product with all the features I need. There isn't anything that needs improvement."

More Tekton cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"The solution is open-source."

"The product is free and open-source."

"It is entirely open source and free of charge."

"The tool is open-source and free to use."

"Tekton is an open-source tool."

"The product is free of cost."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

34%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

24%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Harness?

It's a highly customizable DevOps tool.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Harness?

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. I prefer the previou...

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What is your primary use case for Harness?

I used Harness for CICD, and it served as the release platform that our team used for Java applications. We do Java microservices, and we used it to deploy them.

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How does Tekton compare with Jenkins?

When you are evaluating tools for automating your own GitOps-based CI/CD workflow, it is important to keep your requirements and use cases in mind. Tekton deployment is complex and it is not very e...

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What do you like most about Tekton?

Its seamless integration with Kubernetes, being built on top of it and utilizing Custom Resource Definitions, ensures a smooth experience within Kubernetes environments exclusively.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Tekton?

Regarding areas for improvement in Tekton, I have not encountered significant issues. It works well for our use case. However, incorporating AI could be a potential enhancement in the future.

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Comparisons

Jenkins vs Harness

Compared 19% of the time

GitHub Actions vs Harness

Compared 18% of the time

TeamCity vs Harness

Compared 14% of the time

GitLab vs Harness

Compared 8% of the time

Bamboo vs Harness

Compared 7% of the time

More Harness Competitors

GitHub Actions vs Tekton

Compared 33% of the time

GitLab vs Tekton

Compared 25% of the time

Bamboo vs Tekton

Compared 6% of the time

Jenkins vs Tekton

Compared 6% of the time

CircleCI vs Tekton

Compared 6% of the time

More Tekton Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Build Automation

April 2025

Download Harness product report

Buyer's Guide

Tekton

March 2025

Download Tekton product report

Also Known As

Armory

No data available

Overview

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

Tekton is a powerful yet flexible Kubernetes-native open-source framework for creating continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) systems. It lets you build, test, and deploy across multiple cloud providers or on-premises systems by abstracting away the underlying implementation details.

Google

Sample Customers

Linedata, Openbank, Home Depot, Advanced

The Home Depot, PayPal, Target, HSBC, McKesson, Oncology Venture

Buyer's Guide

Harness vs. Tekton

April 2025

Free Report: Harness vs. Tekton

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