Lua Alternatives

Lua is described as 'Powerful, fast, lightweight, embeddable scripting language' and is a very popular programming language in the development category. There are more than 50 alternatives to Lua for a variety of platforms, including Linux, Windows, Mac, BSD and Web-based apps. The best Lua alternative is Python, which is both free and Open Source. Other great apps like Lua are JavaScript, C (programming language), PHP and C#.

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Alternatives list

  1. Apache Groovy icon
     30 likes

    Groovy is an agile and dynamic language for the Java Virtual Machine (JVM).

    Cost / License

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  2. Tcl icon
     21 likes

    Tcl (Tool Command Language) is a very powerful but easy to learn dynamic programming language, suitable for a very wide range of uses.

    79 Tcl alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • BSD
     
  3. MicroPython icon
     1 like

    MicroPython aims to implement the Python 3.4 standard (with selected features from later versions) with respect to language syntax, and most of the features of MicroPython are identical to those described by the “Language Reference” documentation at docs.python.org.

    64 MicroPython alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Online
    • BSD
    • Self-Hosted
    • JavaScript
    • FreeBSD
    • OpenBSD
     
  4. Wolfram Language is a symbolic language, deliberately designed with the breadth and unity needed to develop powerful programs quickly. By integrating high-level forms—like Image, GeoPolygon or Molecule—along with advanced superfunctions—such as ImageIdentify or...

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary (MIT)

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Online
    • BSD
    • openSUSE
    • FreeBSD
    • OpenSolaris
    • NetBSD
    • OpenBSD
     
  5. HolyC icon
     5 likes

    HolyC is very similar to regular C, so it's a very simple but powerful language. It was used to make all of TempleOS, so it definitely works to make programs.

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Linux
    • Self-Hosted
     
  6. Janet is a functional and imperative programming language. It runs on Windows, Linux, macOS, and should run on other systems with some porting. The entire language (core library, interpreter, compiler, assembler) is about 200-300 kB and should run on many constrained systems.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  7. Pluto icon
     Like

    Pluto is a superset of Lua 5.4 designed for general-purpose programming. While being remarkably compatible with Lua 5.4 source-code & bytecode, it enhances the standard library & adds more than a dozen highly-desired syntaxes such as switch statements, compound...

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  8. Guile icon
     3 likes

    Guile is the GNU Ubiquitous Intelligent Language for Extensions, the official extension language for the GNU operating system. It's an implementation of the Scheme programming language, supporting the Revised5 and most of the Revised6 language reports, as well as many SRFIs.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  9. Unison is a statically-typed functional language with type inference, an effect system, and advanced tooling. It is based around a big idea of content-addressed code, in which function are identified by a hash of their implementation rather than by name, and code is stored as...

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • BSD
    • Self-Hosted
     
  10. Hy icon
     7 likes

    Hy is a wonderful dialect of Lisp that’s embedded in Python.

    Since Hy transforms its Lisp code into the Python Abstract Syntax Tree, you have the whole beautiful world of Python at your fingertips, in Lisp form!.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  11. Bosque icon
     3 likes

    The Bosque programming language is an experiment in regularized design for a machine assisted rapid and reliable software development lifecycle.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Online
    • Android
    • iPhone
    • BSD
     
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