head to head · open source
ponytail vs html-video
ponytail has 182,779 GitHub stars, 10,094 forks, 270 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. html-video has 4,800 stars, 579 forks, 53 open issues and last shipped 5 months ago. ponytail leads on adoption by 3,708% (182,779 vs 4,800 stars). ponytail is written in JavaScript under MIT; html-video is written in HTML under Apache-2.0. ponytail has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, html-video 12%. ponytail 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 | html-video | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 183K | ★ 4.8K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | HTML |
| Last push | 2026-10-29 | 2026-06-21 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 579 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ponytail if
- You weight community size — 183K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick html-video if
- You want the html-video feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches HTML
- You evaluated both and html-video 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 html-video
html video HTML becomes video — on your laptop. Bring your local coding agent (Open Design · Windsurf CLI · Trae CLI · Claude Code · Cursor · Codex · Gemini · Grok · Qwen · OpenCode · Copilot · Aider · Hermes · or the Anthropic API). Describe a video, or paste an article link / GitHub repo , and the agent turns it into a multi frame, fully animated video — then renders it to a real MP4 right on your machine. One agent loop, pluggable rendering engines, a curated template gallery, optional AI soundtrack. Apache 2.0, no per render fees, no vendor lock in. An official project by the Open Design team · open…
read the full html-video overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ponytail or html-video more popular?
ponytail has 182,779 GitHub stars and html-video has 4,800. ponytail has the larger community by that measure.
Are ponytail and html-video free?
Both are open source. ponytail is licensed under MIT and html-video under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ponytail and html-video?
ponytail is written in JavaScript and html-video 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 html-video?
Choose ponytail if you want the larger community (182,779 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose html-video if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.