head to head · open source
ponytail vs Portkey AI Gateway
ponytail has 182,779 GitHub stars, 10,094 forks, 270 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. Portkey AI Gateway has 13,302 stars, 1,365 forks, 262 open issues and last shipped 5 months ago. ponytail leads on adoption by 1,274% (182,779 vs 13,302 stars). ponytail is written in JavaScript under MIT; Portkey AI Gateway is written in TypeScript under MIT. ponytail has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, Portkey AI Gateway 10%. ponytail was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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 | Portkey AI Gateway | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 183K | ★ 13K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-29 | 2026-05-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| 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 Portkey AI Gateway if
- You want the Portkey AI Gateway feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Portkey AI 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 Portkey AI Gateway
English 中文 日本語 [!IMPORTANT] :rocket: Gateway 2.0 (Pre Release) Portkey's core enterprise gateway is merging into open source with our 2.0 release. You can try the pre release branch here. Read more about what's next for Portkey in our Series A announcement . 🆕 Portkey Models Open source LLM pricing for 2,300+ models across 40+ providers. Explore → AI Gateway Route to 250+ LLMs with 1 fast & friendly API Docs Enterprise Hosted Gateway Changelog API Reference The AI Gateway is designed for fast, reliable & secure routing to 1600+ language, vision, audio, and image models. It is a lightweight, open source, and…
read the full Portkey AI Gateway overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ponytail or Portkey AI Gateway more popular?
ponytail has 182,779 GitHub stars and Portkey AI Gateway has 13,302. ponytail has the larger community by that measure.
Are ponytail and Portkey AI Gateway free?
Both are open source. ponytail is licensed under MIT and Portkey AI Gateway under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ponytail and Portkey AI Gateway?
ponytail is written in JavaScript and Portkey AI 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 Portkey AI Gateway?
Choose ponytail if you want the larger community (182,779 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Portkey AI Gateway if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.