head to head · open source
caveman vs Frontman
caveman has 116,900 GitHub stars, 6,789 forks, 155 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Frontman has 721 stars, 50 forks, 236 open issues and last shipped yesterday. caveman leads on adoption by 16,114% (116,900 vs 721 stars). caveman is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Frontman is written in ReScript under a custom or non-standard licence. caveman has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, Frontman 7%. Frontman was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (ai, llm), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| caveman | Frontman | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 117K | ★ 721 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | ReScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.8K | ⑂ 50 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick caveman if
- You weight community size — 117K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Frontman if
- You want the Frontman feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches ReScript
- You evaluated both and Frontman fits your workflow better
About caveman
why use many token when few do trick Your AI coding agent bills by the word and writes like it knows that. Caveman make it stop. ▶️ ThePrimeagen reacts: "No way this actually works" 🏆 1 on GitHub Trending · July 2026 · 🥇 1 Repository of the Day on Trendshift · April 2026 1 on Hacker News · 904 points · 366 comments · 8 Product of the Day on Product Hunt 📄 Cited in CAVEWOMAN , an Adobe Research paper that measured caveman style output cutting cost 1.4 to 2.4×, up to 3× · 🧪 Tested by JetBrains on 86 real coding tasks: "costs you nothing measurable in quality" ⚡ One command, no account, no API key. npx skills…
read the full caveman overview →
About Frontman
Let product and design ship frontend fixes without opening an IDE Frontman is an open source AI coding agent that lives in your browser. Click any element in your running app, describe the change in plain English, and Frontman edits the actual source files with instant hot reload. It sees the live DOM, component tree, computed CSS, routes, source maps, and server logs, so non technical teammates can make precise frontend fixes without guessing which file owns the UI. Docs · Next.js · Astro · Vite · Discord · Demo What You Can Ask Frontman Frontman is built for small frontend changes that usually get stuck in…
read the full Frontman overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is caveman or Frontman more popular?
caveman has 116,900 GitHub stars and Frontman has 721. caveman has the larger community by that measure.
Are caveman and Frontman free?
Both are open source. caveman is licensed under Apache-2.0, and Frontman has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between caveman and Frontman?
caveman is written in Go and Frontman in ReScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, caveman or Frontman?
Choose caveman if you want the larger community (116,900 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Frontman if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.