Life & fun · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to A Lispy Calculator in under 50 Lines of OCaml

A Lispy Calculator in under 50 Lines of OCaml is a lightweight calculator implementation written in OCaml that interprets Lisp-like syntax. The project demonstrates functional programming concepts by building a… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. A Lispy Calculator in under 50 Lines of OCaml launched in 2015; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

1. 1
   Tiny Lisp (based on pg’s roots of Lisp) in caml▲11

   An absurdly tiny Lisp interpreter in OCaml. Contribute to afeinberg/ocaml-tinylisp development by creating an account on GitHub.

   2022 · github.com · its alternatives →

2. 2LW
   Lisp with GC in 436 Bytes▲513

   2021 · justine.lol · its alternatives →

3. 3
   Minimal Lisp in ~70 lines of Haskell▲76

   GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

   2011 · gist.github.com · its alternatives →

4. 4
   Lisp with copying GC in 537 lines of C (plus Lisp 1.5 on top)▲152

   Moved to Forgejo! Contribute to krig/LISP development by creating an account on GitHub.

   2018 · github.com · its alternatives →

5. 5IW
   I wrote a technical history book on Lisp▲252

   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 →

6. 6G8
   GDSL – 800 line kernel: Lisp subset in 500, C subset in 1300▲89

   Pages for posting about my work

   Mar 2026 · firthemouse.github.io · its alternatives →

7. 7
   Kent Dybvig's Scheme Machine in 400 Lines of C (Heap-Memory Model)▲226

   Heap based scheme machine. GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

   2025 · gist.github.com · its alternatives →

8. 8PA
   "Programming Algorithms in Lisp” Book▲232

   2021 · apress.com · its alternatives →

9. 9
   Lisp in C#▲144

   a custom Lisp. Contribute to codr7/sharpl development by creating an account on GitHub.

   2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

10. 10
    A Lispy, embedded Forth▲61

    2017 · github.com · its alternatives →

11. 11MB
    My book, The Common Lisp Condition System▲177

    2020 · amazon.com · its alternatives →

12. 12
    Interactive Common Lisp: An Enhanced REPL▲101

    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 →

13. 13
    Esy – fast and simple package management for native ReasonML/OCaml▲134

    Package manager for Reason, OCaml and more

    2019 · esy.sh · its alternatives →

14. 14
    A notebook-style Common Lisp environment▲180

    The notebook-style Common Lisp environment. Contribute to tamamu/darkmatter development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2017 · github.com · its alternatives →

15. 15
    Lisp implementation in modern Java, Go, C#, TypeScript, Python▲128

    A lisp rosetta stone to demonstrate modern language features - eatonphil/lisp-rosetta-stone

    2021 · github.com · its alternatives →

16. 16
    Smart pointers for the C programming language▲126

    Smart pointers for the (GNU) C programming language - Snaipe/libcsptr

    2015 · github.com · its alternatives →

17. 17
    less than 650 LOC trainable GPT only using NumPy▲90

    Absolute minimalistic implementation of a GPT-like transformer using only numpy (<650 lines). - joennlae/tensorli

    2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

18. 18
    Farolero – Common Lisp style-conditions and restarts for Clojure▲150

    Thread-safe Common Lisp style conditions and restarts for Clojure(Script) and Babashka. - IGJoshua/farolero

    2021 · github.com · its alternatives →

19. 19AA
    Awl, a toy Lisp language written in C and transpiled to JavaScript▲8

    2014 · skepsi.me · its alternatives →

20. 20
    Draw L-Systems with Common Lisp▲72

    Draw Lindenmayer Systems with Common LISP! -- Trabajo para [7531] Teoría del Lenguaje (FIUBA) - FdelMazo/cl-aristid

    2020 · github.com · its alternatives →

21. 21
    Calcul.io▲127

    Math playground - smart online calculator

    2024 · calcul.io · its alternatives →

22. 22
    Llr – a Clojure inspired Lisp that compiles to R in R▲63

    Lisp-like-R: A clojure inspired lisp that compiles to R in R - dirkschumacher/llr

    2021 · github.com · its alternatives →

23. 23
    Python library for functional programming▲129

    Python library for creating data pipelines with chain functional programming - EntilZha/PyFunctional

    2017 · github.com · its alternatives →

24. 24
    A complete compiler for a simple language (less than 150 LoC of OCaml)▲7

    A complete compiler for a simple language (in less than 150 LoC) - 00_readme.md

    2021 · gist.github.com · its alternatives →

Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →