Harness vs VMware Tanzu Platform comparison

Harness and VMware are both solutions in the Build Automation category. Harness is ranked #10 with an average rating of 7.7, while VMware is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.8. Additionally, 100% of Harness users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Harness

Read 3 Harness reviews

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1,455 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

VMware Tanzu Platform

Read 21 VMware Tanzu Platform reviews

380 Views
281 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Harness

VMware Tanzu Platform

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

Harness and VMware Tanzu Platform compete in software delivery and management. Harness leads in pricing and ease of use, while VMware Tanzu is noted for its features, offering greater value at a higher cost.

Features: Harness focuses on continuous integration/continuous delivery, efficient pipeline management, and cost management. VMware Tanzu emphasizes Kubernetes integration, cloud-native application support, and scalability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Harness provides a simple deployment and strong customer service for quick onboarding. VMware Tanzu involves a complex deployment due to its feature set but includes detailed documentation and support for enterprise needs.

Pricing and ROI: Harness offers a cost-effective setup appealing to budget-conscious companies with a quick ROI. VMware Tanzu demands higher costs but ensures a good ROI over time with its extensive capabilities, making it a valuable choice for large enterprises.

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

Buyer's Guide

Harness vs. VMware Tanzu Platform

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)

VMware Tanzu Platform

Ranking in Build Automation

13th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

PaaS Clouds (12th), Cloud Management (25th), Development Platforms (3rd), Container Management (3rd), Service Mesh (7th), Agile and DevOps Services (2nd)

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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DarshanChaudhari

Solutions Architect Hybrid Cloud Practice US/Europe at Tech Mahindra Limited

Empowers seamless connectivity and integration through APIs while offering robust auto-scaling

I am involved in IT services and we provide a solution to customers. We work with VMware, Nutanix, OpenShift, and Microsoft Hyper-V The Tanzu platform is highly available, scalable, and flexible. It offers native services for autoscaling and integrations through APIs, allowing seamless…

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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."

"The most valuable feature of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is the management functionality of the cluster life cycle. Additionally, the solution integrates well with other vendors, such as Velero for backups and Sonobuoy for compliance. Additionally, it works well in multi-cluster environments."

"The most important feature of Tanzu Mission Control is its integration with the other products, especially with ESX and vSAN. This is a strong part of Tanzu Mission Control. In other solutions, such as OpenShift or Kubernetes, you can find similar features, but they don't have similar integration. With Tanzu Mission Control, you get a total solution with only one provider. You have the integration with the infrastructure, virtualization of networking, and virtualization of storage. You have a natural integration, and you don't have the problem of integrating it with different products or providers. Sometimes, different companies have good integration, but it is not always guaranteed. For example, many years ago, Cisco and VMware were good partners in networking, but when VMware started to sell ESX, the relationship was broken. This is the problem that you can face when you are using solutions from two different companies."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is the ability to check the flow of all the different variants within our applications."

"Tanzu Mission Control has quite a set of rich features when compared to OpenShift."

"The most popular feature of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is its graphical user interface for describing network policies on the Service Mesh, which is highly integrable with other tools commonly used in supply chains such as security."

"The most important thing about the solution is its flexibility."

"The solution is integrated very well with a lot of other systems. Also, its GUI is very good."

"It definitely gives the end customer a good overview and perspective of running applications in terms of overall workload footprint. TMC provides a very detailed description of your cloud-native application in the form of graphical visualization."

More VMware Tanzu Platform pros

Cons

"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."

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

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

"Customers have noticed a considerable price increase after VMware's acquisition by Broadcom."

"The disaster recovery feature could be improved to provide better tracking of issues. I would also like to see the introduction of a dashboard view, for even further integration of all the areas that Mission Control looks at."

"We want to see a new feature that helps build more security architecture like Zero Trust Security or shifting left in Kubernetes."

"Another area of improvement is pricing."

"The solution's initial setup process was complex...The solution could benefit from improved customization and visibility for its users."

"LYNX is a managed cluster solution that takes care of specific details within a cluster, such as sequences or services. I haven't seen this feature in Tanzu Mission Control."

"Tanzu could provide more granular control over whatever networking is being done on the containers. I would also like to see a slightly more detailed view of application-level tracing. I'm referring to the connections between different microservices. If they added a service-matching feature, that would be helpful for the customers to build or be more effective."

More VMware Tanzu Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"The license for VMware Tanzu Application Service is expensive. The license should be cheaper."

"The solution is bundled in with Cloud Foundry so the pricing is not independent."

"The product is not expensive, but it is not cheap."

"Since we were at a large data center, the price might not have been a concern for us."

"The least expensive licensing cost for VMware is around $350 per core."

"The price of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is greater than that of Red Hat's competitor solution"

"One of our Spanish customers told us that VMware Tanzu Service Mesh is a very expensive product for their data center."

"It is not the most expensive option, and I believe the capabilities align well with the value it provides."

More VMware Tanzu Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

33%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

11%

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.

See all answers

Which is better - OpenShift Container Platform or VMware Tanzu Mission Control?

Red Hat Openshift is ideal for organizations using microservices and cloud environments. I like that the platform is auto-scalable, which saves overhead time for developers. I think Openshift can b...

See all answers

What do you like most about VMware Tanzu Application Service?

The solution is integrated very well with a lot of other systems. Also, its GUI is very good.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for VMware Tanzu Application Service?

Since I have a developer team, they use the solution for testing purposes.

See all answers

Comparisons

Jenkins vs Harness

Compared 19% of the time

GitHub Actions vs Harness

Compared 17% of the time

TeamCity vs Harness

Compared 14% of the time

Tekton vs Harness

Compared 13% of the time

GitLab vs Harness

Compared 8% of the time

More Harness Competitors

Rancher Labs vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 18% of the time

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 12% of the time

Kubernetes vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 12% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 9% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 8% of the time

More VMware Tanzu Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Build Automation

April 2025

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Buyer's Guide

VMware Tanzu Platform

March 2025

Download VMware Tanzu Platform product report

Also Known As

Armory

Tanzu Application Catalog, Application Platform, Application Service, Hub, Mission Control, Service Mesh, Build Service, Concourse for VMware Tanzu

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

VMware Tanzu Platform is designed for cloud-native development and management of Kubernetes, CI/CD processes, microservices, and containerized workloads. It supports deployments both on cloud and on-premises, providing centralized management via Mission Control.

VMware Tanzu Platform offers seamless integration with vSphere, ESX, and vSAN, supporting centralized cluster management and lifecycle management. The platform provides a GUI for monitoring CI/CD pipelines and network policies, enhancing multi-tenancy and Day 2 operations. Users can easily manage Kubernetes clusters, monitor applications, and integrate with tools such as GitHub, GitLab, Cloud Foundry, and Azure. It ensures compliance and security for service providers, financial institutions, and businesses.

What are the key features of VMware Tanzu Platform?

Integration with vSphere, ESX, and vSAN: Enhances compatibility and flexibility.
Seamless Cluster Management: Centralized control over Kubernetes clusters.
CI/CD Pipelines and Network Policies: Simplifies monitoring and management.
Multi-tenancy Support: Facilitates resource sharing among multiple users.
Comprehensive Lifecycle Management: Streamlines deployment and scalability.
Observability Platform: Provides enhanced visibility and control.

What benefits and ROI should users look for in VMware Tanzu Platform reviews?

Centralized Management: Simplifies operations and reduces manual effort.
Enhanced Compliance and Security: Meets regulatory requirements.
Flexibility in Deployment: Supports both cloud and on-premises options.
Seamless Integration: Works with multiple vendors and tools.
Developer-Friendly Environment: Improves productivity and innovation.

Industries such as financial institutions, service providers, and businesses requiring rigorous compliance and security deploy VMware Tanzu Platform. These entities benefit from centralized management, streamlined DevOps processes, and integrated tools, enhancing their capabilities in cloud-native developments and containerized workloads.

VMware

Sample Customers

Linedata, Openbank, Home Depot, Advanced

Verizon, Cerner, Zipcar, Avarteq

Buyer's Guide

Harness vs. VMware Tanzu Platform

April 2025

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