Harness automates the CI/CD pipelines and manages applications deployments across different environments like staging, development, and production. I use it to monitor the deployments and ensure stability, so when developers push new code to the repository, Harness automatically triggers the CI pipeline, builds the application, runs tests, and prepares the deployment packages. After validation, the CD pipeline deploys the applications to the cloud environment, automating the workflow and helping us deliver faster.
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Automation has reduced deployment effort and now delivers cloud releases faster with fewer errors
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
Some of the best features of Harness include powerful CI/CD pipeline automation, intelligent deployment strategies, and building monitoring. The platform also supports cloud-native environments and Kubernetes deployments, making pipeline management easier, and its automation capabilities significantly improve speed and reliability.
Harness improved deployment reliability by automating the continuous delivery pipelines and adding building verification checks, so deployments are automated and verified using performance metrics, and the platform also saved time by reducing manual operational tasks.
It has saved time; previously I needed many employees to handle deployments, but now the number of employees has reduced and the speed has increased, which is one of the good benefits.
What needs improvement?
One improvement I see for Harness is simplifying the configuration process for smaller teams or startups, as the platform offers powerful features that new users may require some time to understand. Improved documentation and onboarding tutorials would help accelerate adoption.
The analytics dashboard could be enhanced to provide deeper insights into pipeline performance.
The user interface could be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Harness for several months while working in CICD and deployment automation.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Harness is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable.
How are customer service and support?
Customer support is good.
What other advice do I have?
I appreciate that Harness provides good visibility into pipeline execution and deployment status, and I appreciate how it simplifies the complex CI/CD workflows. Its automation features help reduce human errors during releases.
The pricing is good, but it can be reduced if there is a bigger team, and it should have a good plan.
Using Harness, I now need fewer employees.
Harness is good to use; I have to look after the deployments as well. I give this review a rating of 9.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Modern pipelines have improved compliance, accelerated builds, and simplified security testing
What is our primary use case?
Harness helps us build a pipeline with containerized steps that isolates virtual machines, reduces DevOps-based drifts, and improves our process by integrating several security testing-related steps in the pipeline. Beyond that, it helps us remain regulatory and compliance adherent.
A specific example of how I use Harness for security testing or compliance in my pipeline involves the audits and certifications that our institution undergoes, such as SOC 2 and SOC 2 Type 2 certifications, as well as ISO 20001 certification needed for regulatory compliance in certain specific geographies where we operate. Harness comes in because it is compliant with these international regulations, and other larger institutions also use Harness for the same reason.
What is most valuable?
Harness offers several best features that I have worked with, including an intelligent caching system for dependencies and artifact building that allows for extremely short build times without extra bash scripting, a pipeline as code visual editor, and Harness Cloud along with small-lived virtual machines that we can run on Kubernetes.
The intelligent caching system has impacted my build times significantly by auto-caching dependencies and allowing smaller ephemeral runs to shorten build times without any need for detailed scripting, which has made a noticeable difference.
I would add that Harness has dedicated support for unit tests based on my experience, and this support is not restricted to only Java-based tests. I have seen support for Java tests, Scala, Ruby, and Kotlin, which helps us prevent flaky test management patterns.
Harness has positively impacted my organization as several teams have already migrated to it, and some are in the process of moving. It has reduced the dependency on one specific platform and has made it faster, with shortened build times and much faster deployments.
What needs improvement?
Harness can be improved by providing more clarity on the credits it issues for Harness Cloud, as it has a tiered pricing structure involving license and credit costs, which can get confusing. Additionally, there is a learning curve, as Harness is not currently an industry top-recommended solution, especially for teams coming from a Jenkins background.
For smaller teams, having features similar to GitHub Actions could be implemented by Harness, as this could really help the smaller teams who are moving to it.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Harness for three years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Harness is completely stable, and we are using it in production without facing any stability issues at all.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Currently, out of twenty teams that are supposed to adopt it, five or six have adopted Harness, and we have not seen any kind of scalability issues, such as slowness in performance or build time reduction, so I am satisfied with the scalability.
How are customer service and support?
We have a direct line of enterprise support from Harness, and we have not faced any customer support issues, with tickets resolved in less than a four-day SLA.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were using Jenkins before switching to Harness, as there was a lot of dependency, slowness, and build stability issues in Jenkins.
What was our ROI?
I cannot provide data on how much time has been reduced, but I believe the efficiency improvement is more than a twenty to thirty percent increase compared to Jenkins.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing Harness, we evaluated GitHub, GitHub Actions, GitHub CI, and CircleCI, in addition to Jenkins which we originally used.
What other advice do I have?
My advice for others looking into using Harness is to perform a trade-off analysis between GitHub Actions, GitHub CI, CircleCI, and conduct a cost analysis. Harness is still new to the market and is cheaper, but Jenkins is completely open source and requires hosting, while Harness provides enterprise support for us to work with. Pros and cons need to be evaluated before adopting Harness. I am very happy with my current usage of Harness and would rate this review an eight out of ten.
Has simplified Canary deployments and supports smooth updates across large server groups
What is our primary use case?
In Harness, we are basically using Canary type deployments. We have applications, web applications, and web servers. Whenever we get the WAR file with 50 servers in a load balancer, Harness will deploy on the first server by automatically taking it out from the load balancer, deploying the latest JAR file, testing it at the back end, and giving us the result. Then our developer will test it from their end, and if both results are satisfying, they will run the test cases.
If both results are satisfying, then we proceed with the first half. The first server that is deployed will move back to the load balancer, and servers two through twenty-five will come out of it, deploy, test, and go back. It is all automatic. We just need to click proceed. Everything in Harness is configured and runs smoothly.
For CI/CD automation, I am using Harness only for continuous delivery, not the CI part. Harness takes care of maintaining compliance with security measures. We have dedicated IAM in AWS, with secrets and access. Harness itself will be in our private network, and we have dedicated user ID and credentials for each user.
For deployment, we are using Git for different projects. Through Git Bash, whatever changes we make locally, we push them to our Bitbucket. We have configured Git with the Bitbucket repository, and through Bitbucket, we try to merge everything. Once merged, the Jenkins pipeline gets triggered automatically. We check the Jenkins pipeline output to see whether the application is deployed successfully. We are also using Jenkins with Harness.
What is most valuable?
The best features in Harness are its user-friendliness and setup configuration. While the initial configuration can be difficult to configure the thresholds, check the artifactory, fetch the latest releases from the artifactory, and link everything in Harness, once completed, the configuration for any new application setup becomes easy. A fresher can also use it.
The main feature is that it asks for approval before proceeding ahead. It requires two approvals, asking 'Are you sure?' We have to manually enter 'approved' and then click on the approve button before it will proceed with the next step. This is important because sometimes, in a hurry, mistakes can be made by clicking approve multiple times, so this confirmation process is beneficial.
What needs improvement?
Harness setup and configurations could be made easier to configure, which would be helpful.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Harness for these five to six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have rarely faced issues with Harness tech support. We encountered one issue where the pipelines were unable to trigger, but they notified us from Harness itself that there was some downtime and they were trying to fix it. During their downtime, we do not use Harness and do not schedule any deployments.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Harness is fulfilling my expectations regarding the scalability aspect.
How are customer service and support?
We have rarely faced issues with Harness tech support. When we encountered one issue where the pipelines were unable to trigger, they notified us that there was some downtime and they were working to fix it. During their downtime, we do not schedule any deployments.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
It has different modules, and the working principle is quite different. We cannot compare as Harness is totally the continuous delivery tool, and Git is for the developer side.
How was the initial setup?
What about the implementation team?
I do not have any information about whether we purchased Harness through AWS Marketplace or from the vendor, as it is provided to us by our client.
What was our ROI?
I would rate Harness as a product and solution a nine. It works well for me.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I have not worked on the pricing, setup cost, or licensing cost of Harness, so I have no thoughts on the pricing aspect.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I cannot comment on third-party tools because we are not using any third party currently.
What other advice do I have?
I am working with the cloud version with AWS and Harness.
I would recommend Harness as a solution to others if they are using infrastructure where load balancers and target groups are in the picture. Harness is very reliable. We can also deploy Kubernetes applications to Harness itself. In Kubernetes, compared to EC2, whenever we deploy the latest JAR file on EC2, we have to reboot the server for the latest change to get updated. In Kubernetes, whenever we deploy, we have to delete the pods, and new pods will come into picture with the latest update.
Harness takes care of it; whenever we deploy Kubernetes-based microservices applications, it will terminate the pods and spin up new pods with the latest version. The same Canary process is followed.
For my requirement, I am satisfied with what they are providing us in terms of features functionality. I rate Harness 9 out of 10.
Using diverse deployment styles ensures zero downtime and simplifies onboarding while managing errors and secrets efficiently
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
What needs improvement?
For how long have I used the solution?
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
How are customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
How was the initial setup?
What about the implementation team?
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
What other advice do I have?
Streamline microservices deployment with integrated execution pipelines and comprehensive monitoring
What is our primary use case?
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.
How has it helped my organization?
Harness integrates all functions like execution pipelines, environment checks, and log monitoring in one place, making it convenient. It allows monitoring of deployment status and directs me to logs, making it easy to find bugs, saving us a lot of time.
What is most valuable?
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.
What needs improvement?
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 previous less compact UI version of Harness, which showed more details on the screen.
For how long have I used the solution?
I used it for about a year, but the last time I used it was six months ago.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
When integrating Harness with more than twenty applications in one place, it becomes less stable, causing improvements to be necessary.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
When I integrated Harness to more than 20 applications in one place, it becomes less stable. Adding more services decreases stability.
How are customer service and support?
I mainly get assistance from within my company, not directly from Harness' technical team.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was easy to do. I just needed to add a YAML file to my applications and get management approval.
What about the implementation team?
I was in charge of implementing our company's Lightspeed integration with Harness and Tekton.
What was our ROI?
With Harness, the release process decreased from three or four hours to one or two hours, making deployments much quicker.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend Harness as it's better than uDeploy in terms of ease of use and functionality. It supports multiple pipelines, multiple environments, different service configurations, and has a user-friendly dashboard.
I's rate the solution eight out of ten.
Streamlined deployment with reduced manual intervention while helping to define environments
What is our primary use case?
We use Harness as a deployment tool. It allows us to define environments like OpenShift or Kubernetes or Linux servers.
It automates the pipeline system where users can trigger with the master branch. We use Tekton to run without any manual interaction. Once the build is done, it stores artifacts in JFrog, and Harness detects them automatically and executes deployment.
How has it helped my organization?
Harness has been much faster and user-friendly for the end user for deployment purposes. It allows us to do changes in the build stage during deployment, making processes more efficient.
Harness also allows for modifications at the YAML level, which is beneficial for our pipeline and deployment processes.
What is most valuable?
What needs improvement?
Even with automation, there's a requirement for manual change requests for approvals. If this is corrected, we could have a totally automated pipeline. Otherwise, we need to use GitLab or GitOps to trigger automatically with every commit.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Harness for four to five months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Harness is stable. There is no high latency or deployment delay, and it has proven to be reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Currently, we are scaling up the pipelines with Harness, which provides functionality to achieve this without any significant issues.
How are customer service and support?
There is a dedicated team within the organization to handle incidents and issues with Harness, so we don't need to rely on external support much.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were previously using a different tool for deployments which had its limitations. Now, we use Tekton for continuous integration and Harness for deployment.
How was the initial setup?
There were no significant challenges with the initial setup. We had a dedicated team for the implementation and were able to get support when needed.
What about the implementation team?
For the implementation, there was a dedicated team handling Harness, which made the process streamlined.
What was our ROI?
Harness offers a user-friendly deployment experience with faster processes compared to the previous tools we were using.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I do not have information on the pricing, setup cost, and licensing as I am working for a client, and it is handled at the organizational level.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We have evaluated Jenkins and Tekton for continuous integration, yet Harness is used for deployment.
What other advice do I have?
I recommend Harness to other users. As part of the engineering team, my role includes certifying products for applications, and Harness has proven suitable for our needs. I suggest adopting it based on usage requirements.
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.