head to head · open source
ponytail vs LLM Gateway
ponytail has 182,779 GitHub stars, 10,094 forks, 270 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. LLM Gateway has 1,722 stars, 200 forks, 77 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ponytail leads on adoption by 10,514% (182,779 vs 1,722 stars). ponytail is written in JavaScript under MIT; LLM Gateway is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence. ponytail has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, LLM Gateway 12%. LLM Gateway was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (claude, 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 | LLM Gateway | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 183K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | MIT | Custom / other |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-29 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 200 |
| 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 LLM Gateway if
- You want the LLM Gateway feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and LLM Gateway 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 LLM Gateway
LLM Gateway LLM Gateway is an open source API gateway for Large Language Models (LLMs). It acts as a middleware between your applications and various LLM providers, allowing you to: Route requests to multiple LLM providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Vertex AI, and others) Manage API keys for different providers in one place Track token usage and costs across all your LLM interactions Analyze performance metrics to optimize your LLM usage Features Unified API Interface : Compatible with the OpenAI API format for seamless migration Usage Analytics : Track requests, tokens used, response times, and costs Multi…
read the full LLM Gateway overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ponytail or LLM Gateway more popular?
ponytail has 182,779 GitHub stars and LLM Gateway has 1,722. ponytail has the larger community by that measure.
Are ponytail and LLM Gateway free?
Both are open source. ponytail is licensed under MIT, and LLM Gateway has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between ponytail and LLM Gateway?
ponytail is written in JavaScript and LLM Gateway 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 LLM Gateway?
Choose ponytail if you want the larger community (182,779 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose LLM Gateway if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.