head to head · open source
NocoDB vs pony
NocoDB has 65,408 GitHub stars, 5,131 forks, 710 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pony has 3,820 stars, 257 forks, 358 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. NocoDB leads on adoption by 1,612% (65,408 vs 3,820 stars). NocoDB is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; pony is written in Python under Apache-2.0. NocoDB has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, pony 7%. NocoDB was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (postgresql), 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
| NocoDB | pony | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 65K | ★ 3.8K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-08-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.1K | ⑂ 257 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick NocoDB if
- You weight community size — 65K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick pony if
- You want the pony feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and pony fits your workflow better
About NocoDB
NocoDB is the fastest and easiest way to build databases online. Website • Discord • Community • Twitter • Reddit • Documentation See other languages » Join Our Community Installation Docker with SQLite Docker with PG Auto upstall Auto upstall is a single command that sets up NocoDB on a server for production usage. Behind the scenes it auto generates docker compose for you. bash bash install.nocodb.com/noco.sh script can be found here in our github Other Methods Binaries are only for quick testing locally. When running locally access nocodb by visiting: For more installation methods, please refer to our docs…
read the full NocoDB overview →
About pony
Downloads Pony Object Relational Mapper ============================= Pony is an advanced object relational mapper. The most interesting feature of Pony is its ability to write queries to the database using Python generator expressions and lambdas. Pony analyzes the abstract syntax tree of the expression and translates it into a SQL query. Here is an example query in Pony: Pony translates queries to SQL using a specific database dialect. Currently Pony works with SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL and Oracle databases. By providing a Pythonic API, Pony facilitates fast app development. Pony is an easy to learn and easy…
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Frequently asked questions
Is NocoDB or pony more popular?
NocoDB has 65,408 GitHub stars and pony has 3,820. NocoDB has the larger community by that measure.
Are NocoDB and pony free?
Both are open source. NocoDB has no licence declared in this registry, and pony is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between NocoDB and pony?
NocoDB is written in TypeScript and pony in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, NocoDB or pony?
Choose NocoDB if you want the larger community (65,408 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose pony if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.