Harness is an AI-native software delivery platform for CI/CD, feature flags, security testing and cost management. See features, pricing, pros and cons.
Harness is a modular software delivery platform that combines CI/CD, feature flags, security testing orchestration, chaos engineering, cloud cost management and infrastructure as code governance under one roof. Founded in 2017 by Jyoti Bansal (co-founder of AppDynamics) and Rishi Singh, it was built to give engineering organizations a single, policy-governed pipeline engine instead of stitching together separate point tools for every stage of the delivery lifecycle.
The platform runs on Kubernetes and is available as SaaS or as a self-managed enterprise deployment. Each module (CI, CD/GitOps, Feature Flags, STO, CCM, SRM, Chaos Engineering, IaCM) can be adopted independently but shares a common pipeline engine, RBAC model, audit trail and policy-as-code layer, which is the core reason large engineering teams consolidate onto Harness rather than running Jenkins, Argo CD, LaunchDarkly and Snyk separately.
Harness Continuous Integration provides cloud-hosted or self-hosted build infrastructure with caching, test intelligence (running only tests affected by a code change), and parallelization to cut build times. Harness Continuous Delivery and GitOps supports Kubernetes, VM, serverless and traditional deployment targets with built-in canary analysis, automated rollback and native Argo CD-based GitOps workflows.
Feature Flags enables progressive delivery and A/B testing without redeploying code, while Security Testing Orchestration aggregates, de-duplicates and prioritizes findings from static analysis, dynamic analysis and software composition analysis tools into one governance view. Chaos Engineering, built on the open-source LitmusChaos project, lets teams run controlled resilience experiments against production-like environments.
Cloud Cost Management gives visibility into Kubernetes and cloud spend with automated rightsizing and commitment planning, Service Reliability Management tracks SLOs and error budgets, and Infrastructure as Code Management governs Terraform and OpenTofu plans with policy checks before they apply. Generative AI features layered across these modules can draft pipeline YAML, summarize failed builds, and suggest fixes.
Harness prices per developer rather than per build minute, with three tiers. The Free plan gives individuals and small teams access to open-source starter capabilities including Harness CI and Litmus Chaos at no cost. The Essentials plan bundles core modules (CI, CD, Code Repository, STO, IaCM) for growing teams, capped at 500 users, one organization and 60 concurrent pipeline executions, priced via a sales quote.
The Enterprise plan removes all caps, unlocks the full module catalog, and adds premium support with a dedicated account manager plus an optional on-premises deployment add-on. Published third-party pricing data puts the median annual contract around 49,000 dollars, with multi-year prepayment commonly discounted 15 to 30 percent.
Harness is used to automate and govern software delivery, covering continuous integration, continuous deployment, feature flag rollouts, security scan orchestration, chaos testing and cloud cost optimization from one platform.
Yes, Harness offers a Free plan with open-source starter capabilities such as Harness CI and Litmus Chaos. Paid Essentials and Enterprise plans unlock higher usage limits and additional modules.
Harness was founded in 2017 by Jyoti Bansal and Rishi Singh, incubated inside Bansal's startup studio BIG Labs after he sold his previous company AppDynamics to Cisco.
Harness uses per-developer modular pricing across three tiers: Free, Essentials and Enterprise. Essentials and Enterprise pricing is quote-based and depends on which modules and usage limits an organization needs.
Harness can replace Jenkins for continuous integration and adds continuous delivery, feature flags, security testing and other modules on top, though migrating existing Jenkins pipelines requires reconfiguration.
Harness Chaos Engineering is built on LitmusChaos, an open-source chaos engineering project that Harness maintains and contributes to.