Harbor
Snyk
| Feature | Harbor | Snyk |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free only | Free / from $25/mo |
| Free Plan | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Rating | 4.3 / 5 | 4.4 / 5 |
| Best For | enterprise-devops, container-teams, security-teams, regulated-industries | development-teams, security-engineers, devops-teams, open-source-maintainers |
| Founded | 2016 | 2015 |
| Container Registry | ✓ | ✗ |
| Vulnerability Scanning | ✓ | ✗ |
| Rbac | ✓ | ✗ |
| Image Signing | ✓ | ✗ |
| Replication | ✓ | ✗ |
| Garbage Collection | ✓ | ✗ |
| Audit Logs | ✓ | ✗ |
| Sca Scanning | ✗ | ✓ |
| Sast | ✗ | ✓ |
| Container Scanning | ✗ | ✓ |
| Iac Scanning | ✗ | ✓ |
| Auto Fix Prs | ✗ | ✓ |
| Sbom Generation | ✗ | ✓ |
| License Compliance | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ Harbor Pros
- Completely free and CNCF graduated project
- Built-in vulnerability scanning (Trivy integration)
- Image signing and policy enforcement
- Multi-registry replication for geo-distribution
✗ Harbor Cons
- Requires self-hosting and infrastructure management
- UI is functional but not modern
- Initial setup complexity for production
✓ Snyk Pros
- Developer-first approach integrates into existing workflows
- Automatic fix pull requests for known vulnerabilities
- Comprehensive coverage (code, deps, containers, IaC)
- Generous free tier for individual developers
✗ Snyk Cons
- Per-developer pricing expensive for large teams
- False positives require manual review
- Some language support more mature than others
The Verdict
Harbor is built for enterprise devops and container teams, with a focus on container-registry and vulnerability-scanning. Snyk targets development teams and security engineers and leads with sca-scanning and sast.
Harbor uses custom enterprise pricing, while Snyk starts at $25/mo — a tangible advantage for teams with a fixed budget.
Both offer free plans, so you can test each with your real workflow before committing to a subscription.
This is a genuinely close comparison. If you can, sign up for both free trials (where available) and run a one-week test with your actual team tasks before deciding.