head to head · open source
ponytail vs feynman
ponytail has 187,014 GitHub stars, 10,363 forks, 270 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. feynman has 10,092 stars, 1,107 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. ponytail leads on adoption by 1,753% (187,014 vs 10,092 stars). ponytail is written in JavaScript under MIT; feynman is written in TypeScript under MIT. ponytail has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, feynman 11%. feynman 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.
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Side by side
| ponytail | feynman | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 187K | ★ 10K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-29 | 2026-11-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ponytail if
- You weight community size — 187K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick feynman if
- You want the feynman feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and feynman 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 feynman
The open source AI research agent. Installation macOS / Linux: Windows (PowerShell): The one line installer fetches the latest tagged release as a standalone bundle with its own Node.js runtime and verifies its SHA 256 before installing. To pin a version, pass it explicitly, for example curl fsSL bash s 0.5.3 . Rerun the installer to upgrade; feynman update only updates optional Pi packages you installed. npm alternative (uses your local Node.js =22.22.0 ): If you installed the interim @advaitpaliwal/feynman package, migrate once: Then run feynman setup to sign in to a model provider. To use Feynman in an ACP…
read the full feynman overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ponytail or feynman more popular?
ponytail has 187,014 GitHub stars and feynman has 10,092. ponytail has the larger community by that measure.
Are ponytail and feynman free?
Both are open source. ponytail is licensed under MIT and feynman under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ponytail and feynman?
ponytail is written in JavaScript and feynman in TypeScript. 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 feynman?
Choose ponytail if you want the larger community (187,014 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose feynman if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.