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Thin Ni‐doped titanium nitride (Ti‐Ni‐N) films were deposited on X42Cr13 steel samples by reactive magnetron sputtering. By varying the nitrogen gas flow and target composition, films with different nickel and nitrogen contents were grown with a plastic universal hardness between 7.2 and 17.2 GPa. SEM analysis revealed amorphous, fine crystalline and columnar structure depending on the chemical composition. Furthermore, a contact test was carried out to investigate the reactivity between the film surface and single crystalline diamond. Analysis of the films and the diamond by SEM and EDX showed especially that films with an average nitrogen and nickel content did not react with diamond.