head to head · open source
ponytail vs cua
ponytail has 141,230 GitHub stars, 7,572 forks, 270 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. cua has 22,799 stars, 1,587 forks, 926 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ponytail leads on adoption by 519% (141,230 vs 22,799 stars). ponytail is written in JavaScript under MIT; cua is written in HTML under MIT. ponytail has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, cua 7%. cua was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| ponytail | cua | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 141K | ★ 23K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | HTML |
| Last push | 2026-09-14 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.6K | ⑂ 1.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ponytail if
- You weight community size — 141K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick cua if
- You want the cua feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches HTML
- You evaluated both and cua fits your workflow better
About ponytail
Ponytail is an open source agent skill for JavaScript and LLM based coding tools that makes an AI agent write the minimum working code for a task, and it is built for developers and teams running agents such as Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor against real repositories.
read the full ponytail overview →
About cua
Cua is an MIT licensed, open source platform that gives AI agents computers to use, packaging desktop automation drivers, isolated cloud desktops, local macOS virtual machines, and benchmarks for training, evaluation, and data generation — it is aimed at developers and teams building computer use agents who bring their own agent and model.
More in AI & Machine Learning
Related comparisons
More AI Development Platforms projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the AI Development Platforms field.
Frequently asked questions
Is ponytail or cua more popular?
ponytail has 141,230 GitHub stars and cua has 22,799. ponytail has the larger community by that measure.
Are ponytail and cua free?
Both are open source. ponytail is licensed under MIT and cua under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ponytail and cua?
ponytail is written in JavaScript and cua in HTML. 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 cua?
Choose ponytail if you want the larger community (141,230 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose cua if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.