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Harbor

169
178
+ 1
11
Portainer

475
817
+ 1
144
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Harbor vs Portainer: What are the differences?

Key Differences between Harbor and Portainer

Harbor and Portainer are two popular platforms used for container management and orchestration. While they serve similar purposes, there are some key differences between them that set them apart.

  1. Architecture and Deployment: Harbor is an on-premise container registry that can run on a virtual machine or in a container. It provides a secure and scalable platform for storing and distributing container images. On the other hand, Portainer is a lightweight management GUI that runs as a container on a Docker host. It allows users to easily manage and deploy containers, simplifying the management of Docker environments.

  2. Feature Set: Harbor primarily focuses on container image management, providing features like access control, vulnerability scanning, replication, and artifact signing. It offers a comprehensive registry solution with enterprise-grade security and governance features. Portainer, on the other hand, offers a user-friendly interface for managing containers, volumes, networks, and swarm clusters. It provides an intuitive dashboard and supports multiple Docker environments, making it easy to manage and monitor containers without the need for complex commands.

  3. Scalability and Performance: Harbor is known for its scalability and high-performance capabilities. It can handle large-scale container deployments and offers features like replication and distributed storage to ensure high availability and performance. Portainer, while not designed specifically for large-scale deployments, is lightweight and easy to deploy. It is suitable for small to medium-sized environments and offers a simplified management experience.

  4. Supported Container Technologies: Harbor is designed to work with multiple container technologies, including Docker, Kubernetes, and Open Container Initiative (OCI) standards. It provides support for Kubernetes Helm charts and allows users to store and manage artifacts other than container images. Portainer, on the other hand, is primarily focused on Docker and Docker Swarm. It provides a simplified interface to manage Docker containers and services.

  5. Community and Support: Harbor has a strong community and is backed by VMware, which provides regular updates, bug fixes, and support. It is widely adopted in enterprise environments and has a large user base. Portainer also has an active community but is primarily supported through community-driven efforts. It provides documentation, forums, and community support, but the level of support might vary compared to Harbor.

  6. Ease of Use: While both Harbor and Portainer aim to provide user-friendly experiences, they have different levels of complexity. Harbor is more suitable for users with advanced knowledge of container management and orchestration. It offers advanced features and customization options, making it suitable for enterprise-grade environments. Portainer, on the other hand, has a simple and intuitive interface that allows even beginners to manage containers with ease. It provides a visual representation of containers and services, simplifying the management process.

In Summary, Harbor is an on-premise container registry with enterprise-grade features and scalability, while Portainer is a lightweight management GUI focused on simplified container management for Docker environments.

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Pros of Harbor
Pros of Portainer
  • 4
    Good on-premises container registry
  • 1
    Container Replication
  • 1
    Nice UI
  • 1
    Vulnerability Scanner
  • 1
    Supports LDAP/Active Directory
  • 1
    Supports OIDC
  • 1
    Support multiple authentication methods
  • 1
    Perfect for Teams and Organizations
  • 35
    Simple
  • 26
    Great UI
  • 19
    Friendly
  • 12
    Easy to setup, gives a practical interface for Docker
  • 11
    Because it just works, super simple yet powerful
  • 11
    Fully featured
  • 9
    A must for Docker DevOps
  • 7
    Free and opensource
  • 5
    It's simple, fast and the support is great
  • 5
    API
  • 4
    Template Support

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What is Harbor?

Harbor is an open source cloud native registry that stores, signs, and scans container images for vulnerabilities. Harbor solves common challenges by delivering trust, compliance, performance, and interoperability. It fills a gap for organ

What is Portainer?

It is a universal container management tool. It works with Kubernetes, Docker, Docker Swarm and Azure ACI. It allows you to manage containers without needing to know platform-specific code.

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What companies use Harbor?
What companies use Portainer?
See which teams inside your own company are using Harbor or Portainer.
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What tools integrate with Portainer?

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What are some alternatives to Harbor and Portainer?
Grizzly
Writing scalable server applications in the Java™ programming language has always been difficult. Before its advent, thread management issues made it impossible for a server to scale to thousands of users. This framework has been designed to help developers to take advantage of the Java™ NIO API.
Kubernetes
Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers. It handles scheduling onto nodes in a compute cluster and actively manages workloads to ensure that their state matches the users declared intentions.
Docker Compose
With Compose, you define a multi-container application in a single file, then spin your application up in a single command which does everything that needs to be done to get it running.
Rancher
Rancher is an open source container management platform that includes full distributions of Kubernetes, Apache Mesos and Docker Swarm, and makes it simple to operate container clusters on any cloud or infrastructure platform.
Docker Swarm
Swarm serves the standard Docker API, so any tool which already communicates with a Docker daemon can use Swarm to transparently scale to multiple hosts: Dokku, Compose, Krane, Deis, DockerUI, Shipyard, Drone, Jenkins... and, of course, the Docker client itself.
See all alternatives