Harness alternatives for CI, CD and build security

We build CRACI, so weigh that in; we describe every option from its own documentation and say when another tool fits better. CRACI runs GitHub Actions today, with GitLab CI and Jenkins on the roadmap.

Why teams look beyond Harness

Harness, founded in 2017 and based in San Francisco, sells a software delivery platform: continuous integration, continuous delivery, GitOps, feature flags, infrastructure as code, chaos engineering, cloud cost management and security testing, with OPA policies across them. Its Supply Chain Security module generates SBOMs, signs SLSA provenance and checks repositories and pipelines against posture benchmarks. For a team that wants one vendor for everything after the code is written, that breadth is the point.

Teams look elsewhere when the trade-offs change:

• Pricing. Harness publishes its Cloud machine rates, but its paid plans and the Supply Chain Security module are priced through sales.
• Scope. A team that only needs to build and test pays for, learns and operates a platform built for much more.
• Dependency evidence. The SBOM step runs Syft or cdxgen against an image or a repository, so the SBOM describes what a scanner infers from the output, not what the build fetched.
• Consolidation. The code and the rest of the engineering team already live on GitHub.

What to look for

• Whether you are replacing CI, CD, or both, and whether one vendor for both still matters.
• Hosted builds, builds on your own machines, or both, and the operating systems you need.
• Build evidence: an SBOM recorded from what the build fetched, provenance and vulnerability monitoring.
• Egress control, and whether it is a policy on the job or detection after the fact.
• A price you can read before you talk to sales.

CI platforms

1. CRACI with GitHub Actions (our product)

CRACI is a secure runner for GitHub Actions. While each job runs, a package-aware proxy records what it fetched, including packages restored from CI caches, and produces a CycloneDX or SPDX SBOM with a completeness state per job and per cache. An egress policy is validated before the job starts and fails closed, and policy gates can block a build on findings, a specific CVE or a license. Monitored SBOMs are re-evaluated as advisories appear, and build history shows which past builds contained a vulnerable dependency. CRACI charges only for build minutes: $0.002 per vCPU-minute ($0.004 for a default 2 vCPU runner), metered per second, with no monthly fee and no per-SBOM charge.

Best for: teams on GitHub that want the SBOM, the network policy and the provenance to come from the runner that did the build.

Consider if: you can move pipelines to GitHub Actions workflows. CRACI covers the build, not deployments or feature flags, and runs Linux jobs today; Windows, macOS and customer-hosted runners are on the roadmap.

CRACI vs Harness

2. GitHub Actions

CI/CD built into GitHub, with hosted Linux, Windows and macOS runners and self-hosted runners for your own machines. Plans include 2,000 to 50,000 minutes a month, and a standard 2-core Linux runner is $0.006 per minute as of September 2026. Around it sit the dependency graph, Dependabot and artifact attestations.

Best for: code that already lives on GitHub.

Consider if: you want hosted runners on every operating system. The SBOM it exports describes the repository, not the build.

CI/CD platforms compared

3. GitLab CI

Part of a complete DevSecOps platform: source control, merge requests, planning and CI/CD in one product, hosted or self-managed. Basic SAST, secret detection and container scanning run in all tiers; Ultimate adds dependency scanning and the vulnerability report. As of September 2026, Free includes 400 compute minutes and Premium is $29 per user per month billed annually.

Best for: one vendor for the whole lifecycle, including self-managed installs.

Consider if: you would move source control too.

CRACI vs GitLab CI

4. CircleCI

A mature hosted CI/CD platform that connects to GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket. It runs jobs on Docker, Linux, Arm, Windows, macOS and GPU resource classes, with self-hosted runners for your own machines. Docker layer caching is on all plans, and test splitting spreads suites across parallel executors. As of September 2026, the Free plan includes 30,000 credits a month.

Best for: mixed platforms and large test suites, without moving source control.

Consider if: you are happy to add SBOMs and scanning through orbs.

CRACI vs CircleCI

5. Buildkite

A hybrid platform: Buildkite's SaaS control plane orchestrates, and the agents that run jobs live on your own infrastructure, so source code and secrets stay in your environment. It works with GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket and more. Hosted agents are available too, at $0.004 per vCPU minute on Linux as of September 2026, and signed pipelines let agents refuse jobs modified after upload.

Best for: builds that must run on your own hardware, without running the whole platform.

Consider if: you are ready to design build security yourself on your agents.

CRACI vs Buildkite

6. Azure Pipelines

The CI/CD part of Azure DevOps. It builds on Linux, macOS and Windows, works with Azure Repos and GitHub, and deploys to virtual machines, containers, on-premises and cloud targets. As of September 2026, one Microsoft-hosted parallel job with 1,800 minutes a month is free, and each extra hosted job is $40 a month; one self-hosted job is free and each extra is $15.

Best for: teams already on Azure and Microsoft tooling.

Azure Pipelines alternatives

7. Jenkins

The open source automation server, MIT licensed, with hundreds of plugins. You host the controller and agents, and you upgrade and secure them. It works with most source control systems through plugins.

Best for: full control on your own infrastructure, if you have the people to run it.

Jenkins alternatives

If you are replacing Harness CD

Harness's delivery side has its own alternatives. These tools deploy; they pair with any of the CI platforms above. CRACI does not deploy software.

Argo CD

A declarative, GitOps continuous delivery tool for Kubernetes, open source under the Apache-2.0 license. It keeps clusters in the state described in Git, from Kustomize, Helm, Jsonnet or plain YAML, and can manage and deploy to multiple clusters.

Best for: Kubernetes teams that want GitOps delivery without a commercial platform.

Octopus Deploy

A deployment and runbook automation tool that works alongside your build server, hosted as Octopus Cloud or self-hosted as Octopus Server. As of October 2026, both have a free plan with 10 projects, 10 machines and 10 users; Professional starts at $4,330 a year on Cloud and $2,080 a year on Server, billed annually.

Best for: environment promotion and deployments beyond Kubernetes, with a published price.

Side by side

"Not stated" means we could not confirm it in the vendor's public pages.

When to stay on Harness

• One vendor and one policy engine for CI, CD, feature flags and cost management matters more than any part.
• Your code lives on GitLab, Bitbucket or Azure Repos, or across several of them.
• You need Windows or macOS builds, or builds on your own Kubernetes clusters, VMs or bare metal.
• Signed provenance with a documented SLSA Build Level 3 is a procurement requirement.

Read more about CI/CD integration, build-time SBOM generation and pricing.

Harness alternatives FAQ

Short answers to the questions teams ask when they compare

What are the main alternatives to Harness?

For a whole delivery platform, GitLab is the closest match: source control, CI/CD and security scanning in one product. For CI alone, GitHub Actions, CircleCI, Buildkite, Azure Pipelines and Jenkins. For deployments alone, Argo CD and Octopus Deploy.

Is Harness free?

Partly. As of October 2026, the Free plan includes 2,000 Harness Cloud credits a month for CI, which do not roll over, and a 2-core Linux machine is $0.005 per minute. Paid plans and the Supply Chain Security module are priced through sales.

Can I replace Harness CI and keep a separate CD tool?

Yes. Many teams split the two: a CI platform such as GitHub Actions, CircleCI or Buildkite builds and tests, and a delivery tool such as Argo CD or Octopus Deploy deploys. You give up one vendor and one policy engine across both.

Is there an open source alternative to Harness?

Jenkins is a free, MIT-licensed automation server you host yourself, and Argo CD is an Apache-2.0 GitOps delivery tool for Kubernetes. Together they cover CI and CD, and you run, upgrade and secure both.

Does CRACI work with Harness?

No. CRACI is a secure runner for GitHub Actions that records what each job fetched as an SBOM and enforces an egress policy on the build network. It supports GitHub Actions today, with GitLab CI and Jenkins on the roadmap, so Harness CI pipelines would move to GitHub Actions workflows.