head to head · open source
ponytail vs neo
ponytail has 182,779 GitHub stars, 10,094 forks, 270 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. neo has 3,296 stars, 261 forks, 140 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ponytail leads on adoption by 5,445% (182,779 vs 3,296 stars). ponytail is written in JavaScript under MIT; neo is written in JavaScript under MIT. ponytail has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, neo 8%. neo 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 | neo | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 183K | ★ 3.3K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-29 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 261 |
| 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 neo if
- You want the neo feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and neo 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 neo
A self evolving software organism Neo.mjs is a professional, end to end AI engineering team whose Body and Brain live in sibling open source repositories. ▶ Watch Neo.mjs — Agent Fleet Manager Where the industry runs one AI agent and gets slop, Neo.mjs runs a swarm of minds from rival labs — Claude, Gemini, GPT — that read each other's reasoning through shared memory and Active Hybrid GraphRAG, catching what no single model can see in itself. Through the Neural Link possession interface, the swarm does not just read code; it inhabits live applications — inspecting semantic runtime state, mutating UI and data in…
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Frequently asked questions
Is ponytail or neo more popular?
ponytail has 182,779 GitHub stars and neo has 3,296. ponytail has the larger community by that measure.
Are ponytail and neo free?
Both are open source. ponytail is licensed under MIT and neo under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ponytail and neo?
ponytail is written in JavaScript and neo 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 neo?
Choose ponytail if you want the larger community (182,779 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose neo if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.