AI · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to btrc – C, but better. Built with AI in just a few weeknights
btrc is a statically-typed language that transpiles to C11. It adds classes, generics (monomorphized), type inference, lambdas, f-strings, collections (Vector, Map, Set), threads, GPU compute via WebGPU, ARC memory management, exception handling, and a standard library — while generating strict C11 with no runtime, no GC, and no VM. The compiler is a 6-stage Python pipeline (lexer → parser → analyzer → IR gen → optimizer → C emitter) driven by a formal EBNF grammar and an algebraic AST spec (Zephyr ASDL). The generated C is readable and linkable with any C11 compiler. It ships with a VS Code…
Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.
- 1
An experimental Python-to-C transpiler and domain specific language for embedded high-performance computing - zanellia/prometeo
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 2
a python-like language with hindley-milner-like type system, which is compiled to c - alehander92/Airtight
2015 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 3
x86 C compiler written in untyped lambda calculus. Contribute to woodrush/lambda-8cc development by creating an account on GitHub.
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 4
Get it from here: https://github.com/c3lang/c3c In 2019, while contributing to the C2 language, I started up "C3" as a pet project while waiting for pull requests to be approved... Now it's 6 years later and C3 well on its way to 1.0, having released 0.7.0 last week. Unlike other C alternatives, C3 tries to evolve C – but without concern to backwards compatibility to the latter. What it adds to C is among other things: - Module system - Semantic macros and compile time introspection - Lightweight generic modules - Zero overhead errors - Build-in slices and SIMD types -…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 5CA
Compiler link: https://github.com/c3lang/c3c Docs: http://www.c3-lang.org This is my follow-up "Show HN" from roughly a year ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27876570). Since then the language design has evolved and the compiler has gotten much more solid. Assorted extra info: - The C3 name is a homage to the C2 language project (http://c2lang.org) which it was originally inspired by. - Although C3 mostly conforms to C syntax, the most obvious change is requiring `fn` in front of the functions. This is to simplify searching for…
2022 · its alternatives →
- 6
Moved to Forgejo! Contribute to krig/LISP development by creating an account on GitHub.
2018 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 7
Hi HN! Erik here from Banana (formerly the serverless GPU platform), excited to show you what we’ve been working on next: Fructose Fructose is a python package to call LLMs as strongly typed functions. It uses function type signatures to guide the generation and guarantee a correctly typed output, in whatever basic/complex python datatype requested. By guaranteeing output structure, we believe this will enable more complex applications to be built, interweaving code with LLMs with code. For now, we’ve shipped Fructose as a client-only library simply calling gpt-4 (by default) with json…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 8
Hi HN, Over the past few months, I've been building `dsc`, a tensor library from scratch in C++/CUDA. My main focus has been on getting the basics right, prioritizing a clean API, simplicity, and clear observability for running small LLMs locally. The key features are: - C++ core with CUDA support written from scratch. - A familiar, PyTorch-like Python API. - Runs real models: it's complete enough to load a model like Qwen from HuggingFace and run inference on both CUDA and CPU with a single line change[1]. - Simple, built-in observability for both Python and C++. Next on the roadmap is…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 9
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 →
- 10
Programming language that compiles into a x86 ELF executable. - riicchhaarrd/ocean
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 11GI
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 →
- 12
Hey HN I’ve been building *W++*, a scripting language that looks like Python but runs on the .NET runtime. It started as a fun side project, but it evolved into something surprisingly powerful — and potentially useful: Key Features: - Python-style syntax with semicolon-based simplicity - Compiles to .NET IL with experimental JIT support - Can run interpreted or compiled - Built-in CLI for managing projects, running, and building - Supports importing NuGet packages and converts them to .ingot modules automatically - MIT licensed and fully open-source You can even do things like: wpp import…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 13
A wicked-powerful text macro language for building binary files. - thosakwe/t2b
2018 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 14
C compiler created in Python. Contribute to ShivamSarodia/ShivyC development by creating an account on GitHub.
2018 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 15
An implementation of a dynamic programming language in Rust. Includes: Parser/Compiler, REPL, Virtual Machine, Bytecode Disassembler This started out as a learning project to teach myself Rust. It has grown into a decently substantial piece of software and I've learned quite a bit in the process! Some neat things: + A garbage collector that can store dynamically sized types without any double-indirection (i.e. I have my own Box implementation with manual alloc/dealloc) + The smart pointer used to reference GCed data is a thin pointer. The ptr metadata needed for DSTs is stored in…
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 16
fundamental tools in the spirit of C. Contribute to codr7/libcodr7 development by creating an account on GitHub.
2019 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 17
We’re Robin, Louis, and Thomas. Pipelex is a DSL and a Python runtime for repeatable AI workflows. Think Dockerfile/SQL for multi-step LLM pipelines: you declare steps and interfaces; any model/provider can fill them. Why this instead of yet another workflow builder? - Declarative, not glue code: you state what to do; the runtime figures out how. - Agent-first: each step carries natural-language context (purpose, inputs/outputs with meaning) so LLMs can follow, audit, and optimize. Our MCP server enables agents to run pipelines but also to build new pipelines on demand. - Open…
Oct 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 18IB
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 →
- 19SC
2019 · conroy.org · its alternatives →
- 20CA
2017 · billsix.github.io · its alternatives →
- 21
Cross platform C preprocessor and compiler. Contribute to andrewchambers/cc development by creating an account on GitHub.
2015 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 22
Hi HN, I’ve been working on an experimental programming language called XXML. The project started from a frustration I kept running into across systems languages: Languages with strong ownership tend to avoid runtime reflection. Languages with rich reflection usually rely on GC or give up memory guarantees. Compile-time code generation often requires a separate macro language. I wanted to explore whether those tradeoffs are truly necessary. What XXML is trying to do XXML is a statically-typed, native language that: Uses explicit ownership and borrowing (no garbage collector) Supports runtime…
Dec 2025 · xxml-language.com · its alternatives →
- 23
I built Copapy as an experiment: Can Python be used for hard real-time systems? Instead of an interpreter or JIT, Copapy builds a computation graph by tracing Python code and uses a custom copy-and-patch compiler. The result is very fast native code with no GC, no syscalls, and no memory allocations at runtime. The copy-and-patch compiler currently supports x86_64 as well as 32- and 64-bit ARM. It comes as small Python package with no other dependencies - no cross-compiler, nothing except Python. The current focus is on robotics and control systems in general. This project is early but…
Feb 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 24
Single header stackful cross-platform coroutine library in pure C. - edubart/minicoro
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
Also compare
- Prometeo – a Python-to-C transpiler for high-performance computing alternatives
- A Python with Hindley-Milner-like type annotations, compiling to C alternatives
- Lambda-8cc – An x86 C compiler written in untyped lambda calculus alternatives
- The C3 programming language (C alternative language) alternatives
- C3 – A C alternative that looks like C alternatives
- Lisp with copying GC in 537 lines of C (plus Lisp 1.5 on top) 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 →