Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to A simple garbage collector for C

Simple, zero-dependency garbage collection for C. Contribute to mkirchner/gc development by creating an account on GitHub.

A simple garbage collector for C is a developer tool that automates memory management in C programs. It is designed for C programmers who want to reduce manual memory deallocation and the bugs that come with it. The… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. A simple garbage collector for C launched in 2019; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

1
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 →
2
A pure reference counting GC in Go▲57
Contribute to sendilkumarn/gopurerc development by creating an account on GitHub.
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
3
I wrote a minimal memory allocator in C▲137
A fun toy memory allocator (not thread safe, that's a future TODO). I also wanted to explain how I approached it, so I also wrote a tutorial blog post (~20 minute read) covering the code which you can find the link to in the README.
Nov 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
4LW
Lisp with GC in 436 Bytes▲513
2021 · justine.lol · its alternatives →
5
Flexible C memory allocation scheme with leak checking▲52
🔄 Flexible C memory allocation scheme. Contribute to mulle-c/mulle-allocator development by creating an account on GitHub.
2016 · github.com · its alternatives →
6GI
Going into freshman year, figured I should build an interpreter▲138
Hi all! I'm going into my freshman year, and figured that the best way to prepare for the intro to programming Racket course would be to implement my own garbage-collected, dynamically typed, functional programming language in C ;) Anyways... here's the repo: https://github.com/liam-ilan/crumb I started learning C over the summer, so I still have a whole lot to learn... Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! :D
2023 · its alternatives →
7
Smart pointers for the C programming language▲126
Smart pointers for the (GNU) C programming language - Snaipe/libcsptr
2015 · github.com · its alternatives →
8
libcodr7 – fundamental collections in the spirit of C▲67
fundamental tools in the spirit of C. Contribute to codr7/libcodr7 development by creating an account on GitHub.
2019 · github.com · its alternatives →
9
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 →
10
Automatic cleanup in C using with-statements▲28
Automatic cleanup in C using with-statements. Contribute to taeber/cwith development by creating an account on GitHub.
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
11
A “living” Linux process with no memory▲312
A "living" Linux process with no memory. Contribute to izabera/zeromaps development by creating an account on GitHub.
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
12
I wrote a tool in Rust for tracking all allocations in a Linux process▲113
allocscope - a memory tracking tool. Contribute to matt-kimball/allocscope development by creating an account on GitHub.
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
13
Chan – pure C implementation of Go channels▲150
Pure C implementation of Go channels. Contribute to tylertreat/chan development by creating an account on GitHub.
2014 · github.com · its alternatives →
14
A portable hash map in C▲176
A small, portable, linear probing hash map. Contribute to e-dant/salmagundi development by creating an account on GitHub.
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
15
My own C compiler (just for fun)▲175
rcor C compiler (under development). Contribute to rcorcs/rcc development by creating an account on GitHub.
2016 · github.com · its alternatives →
16
A 166 KB file for cross compiling glibc for any version, any target▲171
A repository that collects libc ABI files for multiple versions and a tool to combine them into one dataset. - ziglang/libc-abi-tools
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
17
Tiny VM sandbox in C with apps in Rust, C and Zig▲196
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 →
18
A simple way to write standalone C programs for i386▲147
A simple way to write standalone C programs for i386 - luke8086/boot2c
2019 · github.com · its alternatives →
19
A work-in-progress C compiler from scratch▲159
Programming language that compiles into a x86 ELF executable. - riicchhaarrd/ocean
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
20
C to Go Assembly▲98
C to Go Assembly. Contribute to minio/c2goasm development by creating an account on GitHub.
2017 · github.com · its alternatives →
21DM
Dangless-malloc – Safe dangling pointer errors (master thesis)▲66
2018 · dangless.gaborkozar.me · its alternatives →
22
Heap Explorer▲73
I wrote a little LD_PRELOAD library that makes it easy to inspect and interact with a running program's glibc heap. It's fun to pause processes, free a bunch of their allocations, then resume them. Most of the time, the processes continue as though nothing happened, but sometimes they do interesting things :)
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
23
Minimal freestanding C runtime for bare-metal/embedded PC projects▲97
minimal freestanding C library for bare-metal i386 development - marssaxman/startc
2015 · github.com · its alternatives →
24
Simple virtual machine, assembler, and C compiler▲99
simple virtual machine and assembler. Contribute to ronsoros/rvm development by creating an account on GitHub.
2016 · github.com · its alternatives →

Also compare

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 →