head to head · open source
ponytail vs ANUS
ponytail has 191,004 GitHub stars, 10,678 forks, 270 open issues and last shipped 17 days ago. ANUS has 6,561 stars, 919 forks, 73 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. ponytail leads on adoption by 2,811% (191,004 vs 6,561 stars). ponytail is written in JavaScript under MIT; ANUS is written in JavaScript under MIT. ponytail has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, ANUS 14%. ponytail was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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
| ponytail | ANUS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 191K | ★ 6.6K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-29 | 2026-10-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 919 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ponytail if
- You weight community size — 191K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick ANUS if
- You want the ANUS feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and ANUS fits your workflow better
About ponytail
Ponytail He says nothing. He writes one line. It works. 54% less code (up to 94%) · 20% cheaper · 27% faster · 100% safe Measured on real Claude Code sessions editing a real open source repo (FastAPI + React), against the same agent with no skill. 54% is the mean across 12 feature tasks (Haiku 4.5, n=4); it reaches 94% where an agent over builds (a date picker) and is near zero where the code is already minimal. ponytail keeps every safety guard while a bare "write one liners" prompt drops one. (The earlier single shot benchmark reported 80 94% as a flat figure; against a fair agentic…
read the full ponytail overview →
About ANUS
ANUS A free coding agent in your terminal. It reads your code, edits files and runs commands, like the paid ones. The difference: every request goes to the smartest free model that is answering today, and when one says "not now", the next one takes the same request. You pay nothing. Watch it with sound on X (22 s) · download the video or Needs Node.js 22.19 or newer. First run ANUS asks for at least one free key. Each takes a minute to get: Start with OpenRouter. More keys mean more free requests a day and more models to fall back on. Change keys any time with anus setup . How "free" works ANUS keeps a ranked…
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Frequently asked questions
Is ponytail or ANUS more popular?
ponytail has 191,004 GitHub stars and ANUS has 6,561. ponytail has the larger community by that measure.
Are ponytail and ANUS free?
Both are open source. ponytail is licensed under MIT and ANUS under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ponytail and ANUS?
ponytail is written in JavaScript and ANUS in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, ponytail or ANUS?
Choose ponytail if you want the larger community (191,004 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose ANUS if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.