Harbor vs Amazon Elastic Container Registry

Harbor9.4Visit Amazon Elastic Container Registry8.8Visit

Higher score Harbor #1 in Container Registries 9.4/10 Open source ✓ 4 of 4 features Visit Harbor

vs

Amazon Elastic Container Registry #7 in Container Registries 8.8/10 Paid ✓ 4 of 4 features Visit Amazon ECR

• Harbor fits best

  Teams wanting a capable open-source registry

• Amazon Elastic Container Registry fits best

  AWS-native container workloads

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Side by side

Feature	Harbor 9.4/10 Visit ↗	Amazon Elastic Container Registry 8.8/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score	9.4	8.8
Ranking	#1 in Container Registries	#7 in Container Registries
Best for	Teams wanting a capable open-source registry	AWS-native container workloads
Pricing model	Free	Paid
Starting price	Open source	$0.10/GB/mo
Free plan	Not checked yet	—
Free trial	—	—
Deployment	Self-hosted	Cloud
Platforms	Web, Linux	Web
Support	Community, Docs	Docs
Integrations	9 integrations	7 integrations
Built for	Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise	Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise
Features Harbor 4/4 · Amazon Elastic Container Registry 4/4
Image scanning	✓	✓
OCI artifacts	✓	✓
Immutable tags	✓	✓
Retention policies	✓	✓
Specs
Replication scope	Not checked yet	Multi-region
Included storage	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Maximum image size	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Our review
Pros	Supports OCI images, indexes, and other OCI artifacts Combines scanning, signing, immutability, retention, and RBAC Replicates with Harbor and other major registries	Deep integration with ECS, EKS, Fargate, Lambda, and Elastic Beanstalk Scanning, immutable tags, lifecycle policies, signing, and encrypted storage Cross-Region and cross-account replication with pull-through caching
Cons	Requires self-hosted deployment and ongoing administration No AI features for AI-assisted registry workflows Web and API access still depend on your hosting environment	Usage-based pricing requires cost planning rather than fixed subscription budgeting Its strongest fit is within the AWS ecosystem The 52,000 MiB layer limit may matter for unusually large layers
Our verdict	Harbor is a self-hosted, open-source container registry for organizations managing container images and cloud-native artifacts. It fits teams that want control over deployment and registry policies without a proprietary license. Projects… Read the review →	Amazon Elastic Container Registry (Amazon ECR) is a fully managed registry for Docker and Open Container Initiative images and artifacts. It supports private and public repositories, with access through the web, APIs, Docker-compatible… Read the review →

Strengths and trade-offs

• Harbor — where it wins

  • Supports OCI images, indexes, and other OCI artifacts
  • Combines scanning, signing, immutability, retention, and RBAC
  • Replicates with Harbor and other major registries

  Where it doesn't

  • Requires self-hosted deployment and ongoing administration
  • No AI features for AI-assisted registry workflows
  • Web and API access still depend on your hosting environment

• Amazon Elastic Container Registry — where it wins

  • Deep integration with ECS, EKS, Fargate, Lambda, and Elastic Beanstalk
  • Scanning, immutable tags, lifecycle policies, signing, and encrypted storage
  • Cross-Region and cross-account replication with pull-through caching

  Where it doesn't

  • Usage-based pricing requires cost planning rather than fixed subscription budgeting
  • Its strongest fit is within the AWS ecosystem
  • The 52,000 MiB layer limit may matter for unusually large layers

• Harbor9.4/10 · Open source

  A self-hosted Harbor registry with strong policy, scanning, signing, and replication controls.

  Visit HarborFull verdict →
• Amazon Elastic Container Registry8.8/10 · Paid

  A capable AWS-native registry with strong controls, scanning, and multi-Region support.

  Visit Amazon ECRFull verdict →