Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to A Common Lisp implementation in development, supports ASDF
Implementation of the standard is still not complete, but breakpoints and stepping work quite well! It also has some support for watchpoints, that no implementation has. Now it ships with ASDF and is capable of loading systems! Let me know if you like it. Support on Patreon or Liberapay is much appreciated
This is a Common Lisp implementation still under development with incomplete standard support. It features strong debugging capabilities including breakpoints, stepping, and watchpoint support that other… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.
- 1

The notebook-style Common Lisp environment. Contribute to tamamu/darkmatter development by creating an account on GitHub.
2017 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 2FS
2016 · fullstacklisp.com · its alternatives →
- 3CL
A month or so ago, I ported a Common Lisp implementation (npt) to WebAssembly to make a silly blog post, because I was bored and have a lot of time on my hands to waste with things like this (I don't have a job, and because I have next to no experience, these meaningless, silly projects tend to fill what time I do have). This is significant as it's the first time Common Lisp in particular has ever been hosted on it; wasm has a few poor decisions in its design that make it less-than-conducive to being a target for Common Lisp, and a lot of the more interesting implementations require an…
2022 · soi-disant.srht.site · its alternatives →
- 4IM
2013 · lispwebtales.ppenev.com · its alternatives →
- 5

I created this because sometimes I want more than rlwrap but less than emacs. icl aims to hit that middle sweet spot. It's a terminal application with context-aware auto-complete, an interactive object inspector, auto-indentation, syntax colouring, persistent history, and much more. It uses sly to communicate with the child lisp process and aims to be compatible with any sly-supporting implementation. I hope others find it useful!
Dec 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 6IW
The book page links to a blog post that explains how I got about it (and has a link to sample content), but the TL&DR is that I could not find a lot of books that were on "our" history _and_ were larded with technical details. So I set about writing one, and some five years later I'm happy to share the result. I think it's one of the few "computer history" books that has tons of code, but correct me if I'm wrong (I wrote this both to tell a story and to learn :-)). My favorite languages are Smalltalk and Lisp, but as an Emacs user, I've been using the latter for much longer and for my…
Feb 2026 · berksoft.ca · its alternatives →
- 7

2025 · turtleware.eu · its alternatives →
- 8

Moved to Forgejo! Contribute to krig/LISP development by creating an account on GitHub.
2018 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 9MB
2020 · amazon.com · its alternatives →
- 10

Thread-safe Common Lisp style conditions and restarts for Clojure(Script) and Babashka. - IGJoshua/farolero
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 11

A lisp rosetta stone to demonstrate modern language features - eatonphil/lisp-rosetta-stone
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 12RL
- 13

This is a new and very preliminary Lisp implementation that is based on Common Lisp. The main goals are to minimize external dependencies. Currently only sbcl is supported. The only other dependency is on Quicklisp, which should strictly be necessary only for testing.
May 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 14

a minimal versioned log structured relational DB in Common Lisp - GitHub - codr7/whirlog: a minimal versioned log structured relational DB in Common Lisp
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 15

GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.
2011 · gist.github.com · its alternatives →
- 16AC
I think that asdf (https://asdf-vm.com) was a great idea for a project. It helps consolidate installing and running different programming languages into a similar UX. It also is built with a plugin interface that makes it easy to build support for new languages. However it is so slow. I was just testing `node -v` and it was taking ~900ms. That kind of overhead is completely unusable. My shell prompt uses runtimes inside of it for various things so this effectively makes every command take multiple seconds to complete. So I rebuilt it in Rust but using the same plugin ecosystem so…
2023 · its alternatives →
- 17
Rust but Lisp▲218Rust but LISP. Contribute to ThatXliner/rust-but-lisp development by creating an account on GitHub.
May 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 18

Common Lisp with Arc Macros and Procedures. Contribute to malisper/Clamp development by creating an account on GitHub.
2014 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 19

Mount Unix system into Common Lisp image. Contribute to neomacs-project/unix-in-lisp development by creating an account on GitHub.
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 20

A Lisp interpreter written as an untyped lambda calculus term
2022 · woodrush.github.io · its alternatives →
- 21

2017 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 22

Next-level syntax for C-like languages :). Contribute to kiselgra/c-mera development by creating an account on GitHub.
2018 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 23

Hi HN, author here. Happy to answer any questions. I had an itch to make a lisp like language that was a thin layer on top JavaScript. Something that could leverage the thriving ecosystem that exists around JavaScript. It's brittle, hot off the oven. Besides being a fan of parenthesis, I think macros fill in a gap that the JavaScript ecosystem today fills in with one-off compilers, bundler plugins and such. Macros can't do everything, but for example I think they have the potential to enable things like JSX, Solid and Svelte style libraries. Take the tour to get a feel for what it can do and…
2023 · daklang.com · its alternatives →
- 24

Redstart is a lightweight Lisp interpreter written in C++ with a focus on shell scripting. It lets you combine the expressive power of Lisp with the practicality of the Unix shell: you can run commands, capture output, pipe between processes, and still use Lisp syntax for logic and structure. Think of it as writing your shell scripts in Lisp instead of Bash.
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
Also compare
- A notebook-style Common Lisp environment alternatives
- Full Stack Lisp – A book in progress about writing Common Lisp apps alternatives
- Common Lisp running natively over WebAssembly for the first time alternatives
- I'm writing a leanpub book about Common Lisp web programming alternatives
- Interactive Common Lisp: An Enhanced REPL alternatives
- I wrote a technical history book on Lisp alternatives
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