Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to a minimal Lisp with closures, macros and gc in 1400 lines of C
KISS My Lisp - an implementation in pure C99 of a minimal Lisp language. - kototama/kml
KML is a minimal Lisp implementation written in approximately 1400 lines of C99 code. It provides core Lisp functionality including closures, macros, and garbage collection in a deliberately compact form. The project… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. a minimal Lisp with closures, macros and gc in 1400 lines of C launched in 2012; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
- 1

Moved to Forgejo! Contribute to krig/LISP development by creating an account on GitHub.
2018 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 2LW
2021 · justine.lol · its alternatives →
- 3IW
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 →
- 4

GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.
2011 · gist.github.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 →
- 6G8
Pages for posting about my work
Mar 2026 · firthemouse.github.io · its alternatives →
- 7

Next-level syntax for C-like languages :). Contribute to kiselgra/c-mera development by creating an account on GitHub.
2018 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 8

I've been working on implementing the compile-time approach to memory management described in this thesis (https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/techreports/UCAM-CL-TR-908.pdf) for some time now - some of the performance results look promising! (Although some less so...) I think it would be great to see this taken further and built into a more complete functional language.
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 9AA
2014 · skepsi.me · its alternatives →
- 10MB
2020 · amazon.com · its alternatives →
- 11
Lisp in C#▲144a custom Lisp. Contribute to codr7/sharpl development by creating an account on GitHub.
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 12

Thread-safe Common Lisp style conditions and restarts for Clojure(Script) and Babashka. - IGJoshua/farolero
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 13

A native, statically typed Lisp with a REPL that compiles to Odin. - kvist-lang/kvist
Aug 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 14

The notebook-style Common Lisp environment. Contribute to tamamu/darkmatter development by creating an account on GitHub.
2017 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 15

Heap based scheme machine. GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.
2025 · gist.github.com · its alternatives →
- 16

Long-simmering side project that is finally ready to see the light. HAMTs are a cool persistent data structure and implementing one has been a lot of fun. Beyond the code, there is likely some value in the extensive and largely complete implementation docs; basic benchmarks are linked in the README, too. Kind of aiming to be "the libavl for HAMTs". That is obviously a high and aspirational bar but a distinct possibility if it stirs up a little interest and/or contribution. Anyways, it's time for this to go out, collect feedback and maybe even some use outside of toy projects. Let me…
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 17CD
2012 · scattered-thoughts.net · its alternatives →
- 18IM
2013 · lispwebtales.ppenev.com · its alternatives →
- 19

A lisp rosetta stone to demonstrate modern language features - eatonphil/lisp-rosetta-stone
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 20

2019 · gitlab.com · its alternatives →
- 21

A minimalist type-inferred programming language with procedural macro support - murisi/L2
2017 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 22

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
2025 · savannah.nongnu.org · its alternatives →
- 23

An absurdly tiny Lisp interpreter in OCaml. Contribute to afeinberg/ocaml-tinylisp development by creating an account on GitHub.
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 24

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 →
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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 →