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

- 64 MicroPython alternatives
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.
Cost / License
- Free
- Open Source
Application type
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Online
- BSD
- Self-Hosted
- JavaScript
- FreeBSD
- OpenBSD

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
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.

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.

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...

Beef is an open source performance-oriented compiled programming language which has been built hand-in-hand with its IDE environment.

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.

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

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!.
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

































