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.
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.
I thought I was the only person who remembered Apache Ant... I know we're running out of names but that was a really influential piece of infrastructure.
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...
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 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.
I agree! It seems the author is already making thoughtful decisions on what to implement and what to drop. You kinda have to when it's a project of this scope.
Implementing, running, maintaining, scaling a module registry is probably not worth the time. Unless there's a clear technical requirement from the runtime. I would think there isn't since npm protocol compatibility is a stated goal/feature.
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?
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
just got the thing for you actually! literally just finished a stable version last night, https://www.npmjs.com/package/ant-desktop. WIP still, chromium only renderer backend but webview and other backends coming soon as well. no local ant install needed as libant is bundled, when CI finishes ill have windows/linux builds too
Oh great! it seems, that great thinkers think alike :-D
Good to see that you are already working on it though, Good luck and I will hopefully try to keep a keen eye on the project for my use-cases when I need something more flexible than rust iced applications but also having a small footprint. It's good to see more competition within this space so good luck with that!
Hmm, the ants.land website in general isn't resolving for my desktop but it is resolving for my laptop, a bit strange.
It states: Server Not Found, Zen can’t connect to the server at ants.land
What can you do about it? Try connecting on a different device. Check your modem or router. Disconnect and reconnect to Wi-Fi.
yet my laptop which also uses zen which is also connected to the same Wi-Fi resolves the page so I am not sure.
Oh I think that I might be getting it now but I had an custom nextdns profile set up on my browser using nextdns with some more aggressive setups using typosquatting protection etc.
It seems that changing the dns setting made it resolve and afterwards even going back to the same profile is now (resolving it again?) [Could it be that the domain is now cached not needing to go to the dns provider] but I guess that I wouldn't blame you guys about it so much and just wanted to inform y'all of it :-D
> ive seen that happen to .land
interesting, is there any reason behind DNS/(ISP?) providers blocking .land domains?
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.
this was flagging code from all the way back in dec of 2025, back when this project was just some idea and not what it is today.
around feb thats when basically deleted the existing codebase and designed a much more reliable system from the ground up.
I knew the existing code was basically pure slop, and it was not the biggest issue then, now nothing goes past me unreviewed and untested
> To the author: I absolutely love what you're doing overall. Keep going! Just be careful, folks.
Thank you!
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 thought I was the only person who remembered Apache Ant... I know we're running out of names but that was a really influential piece of infrastructure.
I dont know a single soul who uses the Anthropic `ant` cli....
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.
i might try porting this to rust ;)
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...
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.
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.
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.
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?
many, the engine has basically gone through a full rewrite since feb, that was still mostly interpt and missing many jit ops.
nightly will include benchmarks soon as well
Could you use the JSR package registry instead of setting up a new one?
I agree! It seems the author is already making thoughtful decisions on what to implement and what to drop. You kinda have to when it's a project of this scope.
Implementing, running, maintaining, scaling a module registry is probably not worth the time. Unless there's a clear technical requirement from the runtime. I would think there isn't since npm protocol compatibility is a stated goal/feature.
+1 to this.
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 :(
ok?
Would not touch thios with someone else's (code/business).
I can't get Bun to work under WSL1, which is super annoying. Does Ant support WSL1?
unknown, have not tried. but let me know if it does work
You might also try playing the piano. Who knows, you might know how to play.
Can this engine be embedded into other programs?
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?
yes! I will be making a roadmap like a comment here suggested, should help
Damnn, gonna try this for sure
What's the benefits over v8?
its ~8mb including the entire runtime and node-compat work. pretty simple to embed anywhere as well
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
just got the thing for you actually! literally just finished a stable version last night, https://www.npmjs.com/package/ant-desktop. WIP still, chromium only renderer backend but webview and other backends coming soon as well. no local ant install needed as libant is bundled, when CI finishes ill have windows/linux builds too
Oh great! it seems, that great thinkers think alike :-D
Good to see that you are already working on it though, Good luck and I will hopefully try to keep a keen eye on the project for my use-cases when I need something more flexible than rust iced applications but also having a small footprint. It's good to see more competition within this space so good luck with that!
:D
Ant desktop is currently in development, from what I recall http://ants.land/ant-desktop
Hmm, the ants.land website in general isn't resolving for my desktop but it is resolving for my laptop, a bit strange.
It states: Server Not Found, Zen can’t connect to the server at ants.land What can you do about it? Try connecting on a different device. Check your modem or router. Disconnect and reconnect to Wi-Fi.
yet my laptop which also uses zen which is also connected to the same Wi-Fi resolves the page so I am not sure.
Weird, maybe your DNS settings on your desktop or an extension blocking it?
thats very weird, its hosted on cloudflare workers atm. might be blocked by your isp? ive seen that happen to .land
Oh I think that I might be getting it now but I had an custom nextdns profile set up on my browser using nextdns with some more aggressive setups using typosquatting protection etc.
It seems that changing the dns setting made it resolve and afterwards even going back to the same profile is now (resolving it again?) [Could it be that the domain is now cached not needing to go to the dns provider] but I guess that I wouldn't blame you guys about it so much and just wanted to inform y'all of it :-D
> ive seen that happen to .land
interesting, is there any reason behind DNS/(ISP?) providers blocking .land domains?
> interesting, is there any reason behind DNS/(ISP?) providers blocking .land domains?
tbh have not seen any reason behind it, just saw my ants.land get blocked a office firewall once while demoing
Cannot access the web site: whatwg cartel web engine only.
Is antjs coded in plain and simple C?
I hope you get some collaborators, to increase the bus factor. You might want to write a roadmap to focus efforts.
good idea!
> 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.
Why not use a runtime designed for embedded applications, like XS? https://moddable.com/documentation/readme