In this article we study the Cesàro operator $$ \mathcal{C}(f)(z)=\frac{1}{z}\int_{0}^{z}f(\zeta)\,d\zeta, $$ and its companion operator $\mathcal{T}$ on Hardy spaces of the upper half plane. We identify $\mathcal{C}$ and $\mathcal{T}$ as resolvents for appropriate semigroups of composition operators and we find the norm and the spectrum in each case. The relation of $\mathcal{C}$ and $\mathcal{T}$ with the corresponding Ces\`{a}ro operators on Lebesgue spaces $L^p(\mathbb R)$ of the boundary line is also discussed.