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Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to A C/C++ IDE written in C from scratch with zero dependencies

I’ve spent the last ~2 years building a C/C++ IDE for Windows entirely in C99. My goal was to eliminate the bloat of the modern Visual Studio environment keeping its core features. Key Technical Highlights: Zero Dependencies: Just the Windows API Performance: Starts in 0.1ms on a twelve year old machine. It handles projects with 500k+ lines without UI lag or indexing stutters. Integrated Tools: Includes a custom-built debugger, profiler, and Intellisense engine designed for speed. Portability: It’s a single executable. No installer required. I built this because I was tired of waiting…

This is a C/C++ IDE built entirely in C99 for Windows, designed as a lightweight alternative to Visual Studio. It runs as a single portable executable with no external dependencies, starting in milliseconds and… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.

  1. 1

    An OpenGL RTS game engine written in C. Contribute to eduard-permyakov/permafrost-engine development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2021 · github.com · its alternatives →

  2. 2

    Hi HN! Korean high school senior here, about to start CS in college. I built a browser engine from scratch in C++ to understand how browsers work. First time using C++, 8 weeks of development, lots of debugging—but it works! Features: - HTML parsing with error correction - CSS cascade and inheritance - Block/inline layout engine - Async image loading + caching - Link navigation + history Hardest parts: - String parsing(html, css) - Rendering - Image Caching & Layout Reflowing What I learned (beyond code): - Systematic debugging is crucial - Ship with known bugs rather than chase…

    Jan 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  3. 3

    I love C and C++, but setting up projects can sometimes be a pain. Every time I wanted to start something new I'd spend the first hour writing CMakeLists.txt, figuring out find_package, copying boilerplate from my last project, and googling why my library isn't linking. By the time the project was actually set up I'd lost all momentum. So, I built Craft - a lightweight build and workflow tool for C and C++. Instead of writing CMake, your project configuration goes in a simple craft.toml: [project] name = "my_app" version = "0.1.0" language = "c" c_standard = 99 [build] type = "executable"…

    Apr 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  4. 4

    A little help for programmers, who wants to run C/C++ code in the browser. (This is my second attempt to show it, first time I got banned bcoz of my personal page domain, I don't really understand it why is is suspicious.)

    2022 · github.com · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    A multitasking monolithic Kernel based x86 targeting Operating System written in C# from scratch aiming for high-level implementation of drivers in managed environment. - amaneureka/AtomOS

    2017 · github.com · its alternatives →

  6. 6AV

    I made this because building UIs in a lexical medium like code is super annoying. I have to pre-render what I’m making in my head, and then jump between the browser and IDE to test. I was inspired by the developer console in chrome and safari since I end up editing css there because it’s ironically more convenient. Hope it’s useful!

    2022 · dev.aspect.app · its alternatives →

  7. 7

    Run your favourite programming languages online

    2019 · mycompiler.io · its alternatives →

  8. 8

    GitHub repo: https://github.com/ArcadeMakerSources/ArcadeMaker (first of all, i want to say that I made this project for fun and challenge. I always wanted to create my own language. This has no business goal or something.) So the project is a 2D game engine (MonoGame backend) inspired by GameMaker 8. It includes its own IDE (built with WinForms) and an interpreted programming language that I wrote myself. The language—definitely the biggest challenge in the project—is a simple dynamically typed language. When I started, I had zero knowledge of how to build something like…

    Aug 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  9. 9

    IDE for Claude Code

    2025 · its alternatives →

  10. 10

    Programming language that compiles into a x86 ELF executable. - riicchhaarrd/ocean

    2021 · github.com · its alternatives →

  11. 11

    I built Staying – a tool that instantly turns your code into interactive animations with no setup required. Just write or paste your code and hit "Visualize". No installs, no accounts, no configuration. *Supports*: Python, JavaScript & experimental C++

    2025 · staying.fun · its alternatives →

  12. 12

    A simple way to write standalone C programs for i386 - luke8086/boot2c

    2019 · github.com · its alternatives →

  13. 13
  14. 14QI

    Xoilac TV - trang web phát sóng bóng đá trực tiếp không thu phí của người dùng hot nhất năm 2025. Đây cũng là một trong những kênh được yêu thích và có số

    2019 · quarkjs.io · its alternatives →

  15. 15

    Minimalist, dependency-free virtual machine sandbox for microcontrollers and other resource-constrained devices. Single C file, no dynamic memory allocations, asynchronous design, pure C99 - ringtailsoftware/uvm32

    Dec 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  16. 16MP

    I have been working on this game somewhat sparsely for the past three years or so. However, it is still in a very early stage, and there is a lot of work to do. One of my friends encouraged me to post about it here, since he felt people might find interesting how I don’t use any libraries for it. The game can be played on a browser by virtue of WebAssembly. There are native ports using either MiniFB or SDL2, but you have to build those yourself. I decided to write the game in C because I feel like it is a simple language that a lot of people can understand well enough, and I didn’t think I…

    2023 · zamfofex.neocities.org · its alternatives →

  17. 17
    beLow▲176

    Inline insights with C/C++ that shows CPU, memory, energy

    Dec 2025 · wedolow.com · its alternatives →

  18. 18

    I recently encountered a situation where JetBrains IDEs weren't working for a project, and I wasn't even sure I wanted to keep paying the yearly fee. I decided to de-IDE myself and as part of it I decided to look at my options. The more I saw of Emacs the more interested I got. However using the Doom emacs distribution kind of threw me in the deep end without actually understanding how Emacs operates. I was lost and bounced off quick. I decided to take the approach of starting with vanilla Emacs and trying to get it to work for me as an IDE one step at a time. This post was me documenting…

    Aug 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  19. 19IB

    This weekend I created stacklib.h - a single-header library that brings Forth-style stack operations to C. It implements a basic interpreter with: - Stack operations (push/pop/dup/swap/over/drop) - Arithmetic (+, -, *, /) - Output (., emit, cr) - Stack inspection (.s, depth) Example usage: Stack s; stack_init(&s); dict_init(); exec(&s, "10 20 + ."); // Prints "30" exec(&s, "1 2 3 4 .s"); // Shows stack contents The library is self-contained, requires no dependencies, and handles basic error checking. It was inspired by wanting to understand…

    2025 · its alternatives →

  20. 20
    Codiva▲97

    Online compiler & IDE that developers love

    2018 · codiva.io · its alternatives →

  21. 21

    Fast and powerful .NET C# and F# IDE for iOS

    2016 · praeclarum.org · its alternatives →

  22. 22

    Codebrowser homepage

    2016 · code.woboq.org · its alternatives →

  23. 23

    Back then there were not a lot of frameworks for C++ like there are available now, gradually added serialization, reflection, orm, modules for apache|nginx, then started adding programming language integration and then finally added support for building on various Os'es and also support for most of the build tools out there.

    2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

  24. 24
    Blaze IDE▲140

    Python on mobile to code and create anywhere

    2025 · play.google.com · its alternatives →

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