lua-languages

Languages that compile to Lua

Lua is famously and deceptively simple and enables many different programming paradigms. Like Javascript, it's possible to make it shine by adding more specialized syntax. I started this list to document the languages I found looking for an ML/F# like language.

Note: Unmaintained languages have been marked with (*) and Archived languages have been marked with (^)

Pull requests welcome!

Compile to bytecode

An intriguing new avenue of development started by Rochus Keller for an Oberon to LuaJIT bytecode compiler provides an elegant way of leveraging the ecosystem:

• https://github.com/rochus-keller/Oberon/ Oberon compiler
• (*) https://github.com/franko/luajit-lang-toolkit A Lua to LuaJIT bytecode compiler/toolkit to enable different language frontends and different compilation backends.
• https://github.com/rochus-keller/LjTools LuaJIT tools, a Qt5 GUI parser, browser, assembler and test VM for LuaJIT 2.0 bytecode
• https://github.com/rochus-keller/Luon Oberon and Lua compiled to LuaJIT bytecode

VM forks

• https://github.com/mingodad/ljs ljs JS-like syntax with modified VMs for PUC Lua, LuaJIT and RaptorJIT
• https://github.com/PlutoLang/Pluto A superset of Lua 5.4 — with unique features, optimizations, and improvements.
• https://lus.dev/ Lus: a sovereign superset of Lua 5.5 with its own runtime and standard library

Tier 1

For lack of a better designator, these projects are well known, or compiles existing languages

• http://yuescript.org/ Yuescript, an extended and actively developed form of Moonscript.
• http://moonscript.org/ Moonscript, indentation based syntax, based on the ideas of Coffeescript.
• http://haxe.org Haxe, strongly typed language with both functional and object-oriented features, that has multiple backends
• https://github.com/yanghuan/CSharp.lua C# transpiler

Go/Go-like

• (*) https://github.com/gijit/gi translates Go into Lua. It targets LuaJIT for 64-bit integer support.
• (*) https://github.com/theFox6/LuaVenusCompiler Transpiler for Venus, a Go-like language
• https://github.com/erde-lang/erde Transpiler with Go-like syntax favoring symbols over words

Typed Lua

• (^) https://github.com/devcat-studio/kailua KaiLua
• https://github.com/pallene-lang/pallene Pallene, friendly fork of Titan
• (*) https://github.com/titan-lang/titan-v0 Titan
• (*) https://github.com/ggVGc/Tua Tua
• https://github.com/teal-language/tl Teal
• https://github.com/CapsAdmin/NattLua NattLua
• https://github.com/yazaldefilimone/stella/https://github.com/yazaldefilimone/stella-compiler Stella

Binary compiled Lua-like

• https://github.com/dibyendumajumdar/ravi and http://ravilang.github.io/ Ravi
• http://terralang.org/ Terra
• https://github.com/edubart/nelua-lang Nelua, Natively Extensible Lua

Strongly typed

• https://github.com/rochus-keller/Oberon/ Oberon
• (*) https://github.com/wu-lang/wu Slightly Rusty with classes and traits

Javascript

• (*) https://github.com/PaulBernier/castl Javascript transpiler
• (*) https://github.com/seanjensengrey/colony-js Javascript transpiler
• (*) https://github.com/saharNooby/lua-js-syntax Javascript inspired syntax

TypeScript

• https://github.com/roblox-ts/roblox-ts
• (*) https://github.com/ASDAlexander77/TypeScriptLua
• https://github.com/TypeScriptToLua/TypeScriptToLua

Functional

• (^) https://amulet.works An ML-like functional programming language that transpiles to lua
• https://github.com/kindl/Hypatia Hypatia, an ML-like language that transpiles to Lua
• (*) https://github.com/ptol/oczor Haskell-like language that compiles to Lua, Javascript, Emacs lisp and Ruby
• (*) https://github.com/iitalics/Lua-ML Basic ML language
• (*) https://github.com/hengestone/pumpkin ML-like language with an experimental Lua back-end
• https://github.com/minoki/LunarML A Standard ML compiler that produces Lua
• (*) https://github.com/Russoul/Idris2-Lua A Lua backend for Idris 2
• https://github.com/Unisay/purescript-lua A Lua backed for PureScript
• https://github.com/coetaur0/nox A functional, statically typed programming language that compiles to Lua

Lisp

There are so many Lisp variants, they deserve their own category.

• (*) https://squiddev.github.io/urn/ Urn, Lisp dialect, extensive libraries
• https://github.com/bakpakin/Fennel Lisp compiler and library
• (*) https://github.com/meric/l2l l2l (lisp) superset of Lua
• (*) https://github.com/larme/hua Hua, Lisp dialect
• (*) http://leafo.net/moonlisp/ Lisp implemented in Moonscript
• (*) https://github.com/sctb/lumen Small Lisp
• (*) https://github.com/bullno1/mLisp
• (*) https://github.com/WeirdConstructor/lal Scheme
• (*) https://github.com/adamrk/scheme2luac Scheme
• https://github.com/LuxLang/lux Statically typed, functional lisp with an ML-like module system
• https://github.com/zcaudate-xyz/foundation-base Clojure std.lang, universal Clojure transpiler with Lua grammar spec

C

• (*) https://github.com/davidgiven/clue

Python

• (*) https://github.com/MrVallentin/PyLua
• (*) https://github.com/NeonMercury/python-lua
• https://github.com/MhadhbiXissam/pythonicLua
• https://github.com/AsynchronousAI/roblox-py Also compiles to C, C++, and Lunar, a modified version a MoonScript made for roblox.

Ruby

• (*) https://github.com/Kilobyte22/Mlc

Rust

• https://github.com/ClueLang/Clue Clue, a language similar to Rust that compiles to any version of Lua

Unique

• (*) https://github.com/presidentbeef/brat Brat, using MoonJIT
• (*) https://github.com/richardhundt/shine Shine, using TvmJit
• (*) https://github.com/apotheon/vortex Vortex
• (*) https://github.com/tommo/yu Yu
• (*) https://github.com/Reuh/candran Candran
• https://hurdy.apicici.com/ Hurdy

Other

• (*) https://github.com/marcoonroad/moonforth Forth to Lua transpiler
• https://github.com/tjdevries/vim9jit vim9script to Lua transpiler