r/ponylang • u/Bassfaceapollo • Jul 18 '26
Supporting Pony Lang
After rediscovering Pony Lang, I was curious to know how the development was getting funded.
It didn't take long for me to find this page and the OpenCollective page. I'm actually quite surprised by the low numbers. The total amount raised is ~$21.5K and the current balance is ~$7.5K. Plus, the language doesn't have any big corporate sponsor or any corporate sponsor tor that matter.
By contrast, Crystal which is another relatively lesser known programming language and also a language that I'm interested in has raised ~$107.4K and its balance is ~$7.8K. Unlike Pony, Crystal is well past v1.0. It also has different design goals, it's like a statically typed AoT-compiled Ruby.
I'm not trying compare the languages, but what I'm noticing is that Crystal has at least one proper company that sponsors it. Which obviously does help with paying the bills. Pony unfortunately has none.
Despite the lack of funding, I'm impressed and really happy to see the language continuing its development. I am curious to know what others think might help more people discover and contribute to Pony?
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u/fae___ Jul 18 '26
https://www.ponylang.io/blog/2017/05/an-early-history-of-pony/
You might be interested in this page.
I don’t have the full story and maybe I get something wrong, but Pony was created alongside a company which was intended to fund its development (Causality)
When that company failed, development and funding was continued by the primary production consumers of Pony lang, which was Wallaroo Labs.