- I code with AI all day, every day. But I do think that it's worth pointing to this issue (from March).
The author has said that they've redone it since, but the "from-scratch hand-built" framing specifically – for me – somewhat grates given the original heavy lifting from an existing AGPL codebase.
https://github.com/cesanta/elk/issues/75
I want to acknowledge that the original authors don't seem to have minded too much – per that thread – after older versions were dropped.
For context, the current code doesn't look like it is the same shape, the same structure, etc., etc. – it _has_ been rewritten since (the 'since Feb' rewrite mentioned adjacent is related to this, AFAICT).
To the author: I absolutely love what you're doing overall. Keep going! Just be careful, folks.
- Why call it "Ant" and not "Antjs" or "Ant.js" when there is already Ant from Apache? https://ant.apache.org
- The author shared their experience building the first version in a month: https://themackabu.dev/blog/js-in-one-month
And then the follow up few months later: https://themackabu.dev/blog/ant-part-two
I'm not sure what the economics of building a new runtime and ecosystem from scratch are but it seems we're already in a phase where individual developers are creating software which previously took a whole team. And its only getting started...
- i was just joking about Anthropic's `ant` CLI not caring about Apache `ant` (maybe one person got it), and now we're talking about Javascript `ant`!
- I’m not that deep in the JS ecosystem or runtimes, but I’m a little surprised by some of the claims here about being smaller, having fast starts, sandboxing, performance-competitive, etc.
Does anyone have a sense of what insights, design choices, big bets, etc, unlock all these advantages against already mature and highly optimised JS stacks?
- What is the serif typeface used on the website? It’s been renamed (I assume) to ant_serif and scrubbed of any other identifiers. It’s very pleasant.
- You're stating: "delivers near-V8 speeds"
But according to zoo.js benchmarks that is far from the case:
https://zoo.js.org/
Unless there were major perf gains since 2026-02-10?
- The thing that caught my eye immediately was the sandboxing. I have no idea why Node and npm don’t have sandboxing by default. It would greatly help with some of these worms and supply chain attacks.
by md-ayaz-me
0 subcomment
- Wake up babe, new javascript framework has been launched!
- What's the fuzzing story? If this is meant to be a product, hopefully it's being fuzzed 24/7, using multiple state-of-the-art JavaScript fuzzers, against multiple state-of-the-art JavaScript engines?
- This is very interesting! The sandboxing and quick startup make this an interesting foundation for a FaaS system.
Lots of frontend devs (and vibe coders) just want a "deploy my code" service.
- Could you use the JSR package registry instead of setting up a new one?
by digitaltrees
0 subcomment
- Cool project. I am working on a JavaScript dialect for my kids and non technical team members. I’ll target and as a run time.
by theMackabu
1 subcomments
- LATEST RELEASE REQUIRES A STATIC RELEASE HOTFIX!!
https://github.com/theMackabu/ant/actions/runs/29167621329.
im very sorry everyone who tried to install and got a libcares error :(
- The design of the website looks very close to: https://cognition.com
by hoistbypetard
1 subcomments
- Seems odd not to acknowledge and differentiate yourself from [apache ant](https://ant.apache.org).
Failure to do so certainly makes me think the new project isn't very serious.
by syrusakbary
1 subcomments
- It's refreshing to see more self-made JS runtimes.
I'd love to see if I can integrate it onto Edge.js for full Node.js support ( https://edgejs.org )
- I can't get Bun to work under WSL1, which is super annoying. Does Ant support WSL1?
- I get the runtime, the engine, and the colony as a monetization angle. What I don't get is:
- Another registry (looks like jsr.io)?
- Another package manager
- Ant Desktop?
- Sandboxes?
- treatjs (what even is that)?
I'd love to see a JS runtime that does one thing: run JavaScript. I don't get why everyone is aiming for an all-in-one toolbox. To me this project already seems convoluted.
- This looks excellent. The sandboxing really stands out to me, and I think ant.land might have potential, since it has a lot of great features other registries lack.
- The author has supposedly created a company (https://sf.tools/), with a broken /jobs page, and yet is developing the project under their personal GitHub account. Does not look trustworthy.
- Great start, clean ergonomics and API surface.
Does `antx` executions are sandboxed by default using `ant:sandbox`?
- I don’t really see how you appeal to JavaScript developers with “small binaries”. What is a 50mb runtime you down once next to a 200mb node_modules ?
- Would really like to hear the motivation behind why you're building this :)
by felooboolooomba
0 subcomment
- Looks really good on the surface. But if you really want to sell it, link to a comprehensive benchmark suit and more comparisons. Because if you don't, people tend to (subconsciously) apply adverse inference.
- What's the benefits over v8?
- wow! i’ve been using deno for a long time, and one of my fav features is compiling a binary. i didn’t see anything about that, but might have missed something… do you all plan to support this?
- Slick project. Very cool.
- if this is trying to competing with v8/llvm thats compiler stuff u gotta be benching and comparing assembly not "hono boot" lol
- a JS runtime called Ant. we have gone from Node to Deno to Bun to Ant — the naming convention is now just a countdown to the smallest living organism
- Can this engine be embedded into other programs?
- Does it support WebGPU?
- i might try porting this to rust ;)
- Appreciate the typography and simple design of the site and its registry.
- Coming soon: LLM harness of the day called make
by gaurang404
0 subcomment
- Damnn, gonna try this for sure
- Cannot access the web site: whatwg cartel web engine only.
Is antjs coded in plain and simple C?
by Imustaskforhelp
2 subcomments
- I have actually known* about Ant for some time from your previous submissions and its really interesting and I wish the project luck!
Do you think that Ant could be used to create a small index.html/css/js project into an desktop app minimally.
I currently found deno desktop which is pretty recent to be the easiest way of doing this for one of my projects (https://epub.mirror.forum) but I found there to be some issues within deno-desktop in terms of some features not working on the desktop app but I overall really like the idea of converting these files into desktop apps and I am wondering if ant could be suitable for that, so I am curious to hear what you think :-D
- This looks like a great replacement for electron
by curtisblaine
0 subcomment
- I see benchmarks for cold start, why there are no benchmarks for runtime performance Vs Node, Deno and Bun? (and quickjs et al.)?
- I hope you get some collaborators, to increase the bus factor. You might want to write a roadmap to focus efforts.
by bellowsgulch
2 subcomments
- > Something you could distribute without dragging along hundreds of megabytes of V8 or Node.
Holy crap, V8 is that big now? Very interested in this for embedding purposes.
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by 123sereusername
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by CrzyLngPwd
0 subcomment
- [flagged]
- And who are you? Why should we trust you and your runtime?
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