Lua

Minimalist OOP library with basic classes, inheritance, and mixins in 30 lines.

Open source, audio/visual toolkit suitable for small games and experimentation. It runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, HTML5 and iOS.

Simple function for printing to the console in color.

A feature-rich command line parser inspired by argparse for Python.

A list like this one, but focused on game dev and the LÖVE platform.

A list like this one, but focused on game dev and the LÖVE platform.

A list like this one, but focused on OpenResty.

A list like this one, but focused on OpenResty.

A highly configurable and extensible window manager for X, scripted and configured by Lua.

Lua editor/debugger extension for VS2012-13 with highlighting, auto-completion, linting, and formatting capabilities.

Minimal rectangle-based collision detection which handles tunnelling and basic collision resolution.

BDD-style unit testing framework with great docs and Moonscript support.

A simple command-line argument parsing module.

Compatibility module providing Lua-5.3-style APIs for Lua 5.2 and 5.1.

Implements an Erlang-style message-passing concurrency model.

Development platform for iOS and Android. Proprietary, but used by numerous top games and apps, totaling over 150 million downloads.

Simple cloud platform supporting analytics, data objects, user management, and more.

Library for managing sockets, signals, and threads based on an event loop with coroutines.

Walks through setting up and using OpenResty to build a simple image processing server; a great starting point for playing with OpenResty.

Time-related functions for Lua, inspired by JavaScript's setTimeout and setInterval.

JSON encoder/decoder implemented in pure Lua.

Parse comments into a Lua table to generate documentation.

Open source, games can run on Linux or on any platform with a recent web browser.

Lua, extended with optimizations and specific features for efficient and portable embedded software development.

An introductory walkthrough of embedding Lua in a C program. A bit dated, but still a great walkthrough.

Embedded Lua templates, ERB-style.

The Lua VM rewritten in Javascript with seamless JS and DOM interoperability.

A fast, lightweight tweening library for Lua with easing functions and the ability to group tweens together.

Annual 2-day gathering of F/OSS developers in Brussels which sometimes has a "Lua devroom".

Golang bindings to the Lua C API.

Lua 5.1 VM and compiler implemented in Go with Go APIs.

Lua implementation of GraphQL.

A powerful, extensible OS X automation tool. A community-maintained fork of Mjolnir.

Detect collisions between arbitrarily positioned and rotated shapes of any type.

A set of lightweight helpers for LÖVE; a game-oriented utility belt.

Internationalization library with locales, formatting, and pluralization.

Human-readable representation of Lua tables.

2D platformer based on Community's Digital Estate Planning episode, made with LÖVE.

A fast and tiny JSON library in pure Lua.

Fast, lightweight, and easy-to-use pathfinding library for grid-based games.

A collection of web-oriented projects using a common set of standards and components.

Microservice & API Management Layer.

An ebook reader application supports PDF, DJVU, EPUB, FB2 and much more, running on Kindle, Kobo, PocketBook and Android devices.

A scripting utility to juggle windows.

A build engine written in Lua, similar to Ruby's rake.

Library implementing a message passing model with one OS thread per Lua thread.

Full-stack framework for Lua and OpenResty. Like the Django or Rails of Lua. Supports Moonscript.

Documentation generator which modernizes and extends LuaDoc.

A well-commented example file which covers the basics.

An overview of the similarities and differences between Lua and JS; a great start for JavaScript folks looking to pick up Lua.

Lua module providing scriptable, RFC-compliant HTTP cache functionality.

Assorted libraries and tools, many math- or data-related.

A simple wrapper for low-level pthreads & WIN32 threads.

Newer rewrite of llthreads.

Compiles Lua to LLVM.

Lua port of Docco, the "quick-and-dirty, hundred-line-long, literate-programming-style documentation generator".

Desktop game development platform. Cross-platform, feature-complete, well-adopted.

Browser-based debug console. Originally made for LÖVE, but works in any project with LuaSocket support.

3D framework for creating virtual reality experiences, inspired by LÖVE 2D.

A pattern-matching library for Lua, based on Parsing Expression Grammars.

An extension of LPeg adding support for labeled failures.

A pure LuaJIT implementation of LPeg v1.0.

A collection of LPeg patterns.

Asynchronous Redis client with pipelining and Pub/Sub support; based on cqueues.

Lua's original ANSI C interpreter.

A glossary of some essential Lua terms.

Annual 1-day Lua conference in Brazil.

Short crash course readover, or reference for when you forget the basics.

Eclipse plugin which provides code completion, debugging, and more. Built on Metalua.

IntelliJ IDEA plugin which, among other things, provides code completion, smart highlighting, and experimental debugging.

High-performance functional programming library designed for LuaJIT.

A series of 'Missions' to work through which are designed to teach aspects of Lua along the way.

A shorter overview of the language, up to date for Lua 5.2, and available online.

A quick reference on how to program in and embed Lua 5.1 through 5.3, by the creator of Textadept.

The official Lua repo, as seen by the Lua team, mirrored to GitHub.

Diagrams and explains some more advanced concepts of the Lua VM, particularly when interfacing with C.

Answers all sorts of Lua-related questions, including many of the form 'How to ___?'.

An association of individuals with the mission of supporting and promoting Lua and its community and ecosystems.

Annual 2-day meeting of the Lua community, in rotating locations.

High-quality talks are given at each ~annual Lua Workshop, and a history of them is online, slides included.

Blazing fast JSON encoding/decoding implemented in C and exposed to Lua.

A MessagePack C implementation with Lua bindings, as used by Redis.=

Lua binding to libcurl.

Asynchronous HTTP and WebSocket library with client and server APIs, TLS, and HTTP/2; based on cqueues.

The official Lua mailing list, and one of the focal points of the Lua community.

A collection of cryptographic primitives written in pure Lua.

Asynchronous logging library with pluggable writers for file system, network, ZeroMQ, and more.

Pure Lua implementation of MessagePack.

Emacs major mode for editing Lua.

A Lua 5.3 parser written using LPegLabel, with improved error messages.

File system path manipulation library.

Protocol Buffers implementation.

Lua Cassandra client driver for OpenResty and others.

Lua HTTP client driver, built on the cosocket API.

Kafka client driver based on OpenResty cosockets.

Lua MySQL driver for OpenResty.

RabbitMQ client library based on OpenResty cosockets.

Lua Redis client driver for OpenResty.

Lua-oriented template engine for OpenResty, somewhat Jinja-like.

Middle-weight standard library extension; adds some useful data structures, utility functions, and basic functional stuff.

Terminal operations and manipulations.

A general, high-level style guide; unopinionated, easily agreed on.

In-depth collection of tutorials aimed at newcomers.

A large community-maintained collection of Lua information and resources, supplementing the official website.

A site for and by users of Lua, featuring an IRC channel, a web archive of lua-l, and a large wiki.

WebSocket client and server modules. Webserver-agnostic, implemented in Lua on top of LuaSocket.

Lua binding to libzip. Reads and writes zip files.

Simple streaming interface to zlib for gzip/gunzip.

Lua bindings to ZeroMQ.

The Lua community blog.

Lua VM on the web; a direct port of the C interpreter via LLVM, emscripten, and asm.js.

A thorough summary of the good, different, bad, and ugly aspects of Lua, including many subtle quirks, by the author of ZeroBraneStudio.

A lightweight library for mapping data, functions, and classes back and forth between C++ and Lua.

Highly customizable Lua 5.2 build system.

Simple static analyzer which detects accidental globals and undefined or shadowed locals.

Simple coverage analyzer, used by busted and telescope for checking test coverage.

LuaCov reporter for coveralls.io.

Lua bindings to OpenSSL.

Date and time module with parsing, formatting, addition/subtraction, localization, and ISO 8601 support.

Lua Decompiler for Lua version 5.1.

SAX XML parser via binding to the Expat library.

Standalone FFI library, compatible with the LuaJIT FFI interface.

An easy to use Fast Fourier Transformation package in pure Lua.

Extends and complements Lua's built-in set of file system functions.

Lua's most powerful code analysis and linting tool, built on Metalua. Used by ZeroBraneStudio, among others.

High-performance Just-In-Time compiler for Lua.

LuaJIT's mechanism for calling external C functions and using C data structures from pure Lua code.

JSON encoder/decoder implemented in Lua on top of LPeg.

Fast, small, webkit based browser framework extensible by Lua.

Log4j-inspired logging library supporting various appenders.

Minifier which also brings its own static analysis tools, lexer, and parser.

"Most comprehensive OpenSSL module in the Lua universe" - used by lapis, kong, and lua-http.

Bindings for POSIX APIs, including curses.

Message-passing model which allows multiple threads per OS thread and easily generalizes across a network. See also the paper where it originated.

De-facto tool for installing Lua modules as packages called "rocks", plus public rock repository and website. Much like npm or pip.

Networking extension which provides a socket API for TCP and UDP, and implements HTTP, FTP, and SMTP.

Simple interface for connecting to ODBC, ADO, Oracle, MySQL, SQLite and PostgreSQL.

Assertion library extending Lua's built-in assertions.

Simple tool for turning Lua programs into standalone executables.

Log to syslog, based on LuaLogging.

Toolset for tracing/analyzing/profiling script execution and generating detailed reports.

Bindings to tweetnacl, modern high-security cryptographic library.

Time, date, and timezone library.

A pure Lua implementation of LPeg v0.12.

A console-based mail client, with extensive scripting capabilities.

Utility belt library geared toward game development.

Simple concurrent task scheduling.

Converts Markdown to other textual formats including HTML and LaTeX. Uses LPeg for fast parsing.

Bindings to common Unix system APIs, striving for thread-safety.

Python bindings to LuaJIT2.

Shortens the iteration cycle by auto-swapping changed Lua files in a running LÖVE project.

Minimal test framework.

Mustache template implementation.

Node.js's underlying architecture (libUV) with Lua on top instead of JavaScript.

A collection of lexers and syntax highlighters written with LPeg.

YAML encoding/decoding via binding to LibYAML.

A newer Lua binding to ZeroMQ.

Lua bindings to ImageMagick for LuaJIT using FFI.

Fusion of Mario and Portal, made with LÖVE. See also its wikipedia entry.

Pure Lua parser and compiler, used for generating ASTs. A number of other tools make use of the Metalua parser in this way.

A little library of useful Lua functions; the 'extra light' version of Penlight.

Simple but robust OOP library with inheritance, methods, metamethods, class variables and mixins.

Open source, cross-platform, mobile game development framework. Minimalist C++ engine powered by Lua scripting.

Edit and share short scripts for the MOAI game engine and run them in the browser using WebGL.

Powerful remote debugger with breakpoints and stack inspection. Used by ZeroBraneStudio.

Moonscript is a dynamic scripting language that compiles to Lua. It reduces verbosity and provides a rich set of features like comprehensions and classes. Its author calls it 'CoffeeScript for Lua'.

A Lua interpreter written entirely in C# for the .NET, Mono and Unity platforms.

A Lua VM implemented in JavaScript. Slower than lua.vm.js, but with better docs, examples, and JS interfacing.

Functional programming utility belt, inspired by Underscore.js.

The core piece of OpenResty. Embeds Lua in Nginx and exposes, among other things, the cosocket API for non-blocking sockets (compatible with LuaSocket's API).

Network multiplayer for Corona, LÖVE, and more, following a simple pub-sub model.

A more opinionated and specific, and therefore more rigorous, guide.

A batteries-included creator of standalone executables, built on top of luastatic.

A fast and scalable web application platform created by extending Nginx with Lua. Today's de-facto Lua web platform, used heavily by Cloudflare, Taobao, Tencent, and others.

Home of the repositories for ngxlua, ngxopenresty, and many related modules.

A Pac-man clone, made with LÖVE.

Pegasus.lua is a http server to work with web applications written in Lua language.

Broad, heavyweight utility library, inspired by Python's standard libs. Provides the batteries that Lua doesn't.

Lua PostgreSQL driver for OpenResty, LuaSocket, and cqueues.

Simple profiler that works with LuaJIT and produces a report file.

A collection of articles covering existing wisdom and practices on programming well in Lua, in a broad variety of use cases.

The authoritative intro to all aspects of Lua programming, written by Lua's chief architect. Three editions released; first edition available online.

Moonshine + LÖVE API reimplementation = run LÖVE games in the browser.

Pure Lua client library for Redis.

The official definition of the Lua language.

History of talks given by Lua's chief architect, with slides for each.

Reactive Extensions, Observables, etc.

— An MVC web framework compatible with OpenResty, Apache and other webservers.

Simple string key-value store for i18n.

Numerical/scientific computing framework built on LuaJIT, with an interface to R.

Dead simple serializer with good performance.

Serializer and pretty printer.

A static site generator which uses MoonScript and supports HTML and Markdown, page grouping, and plugins.

Pure Lua SAX-like streaming XML parser.

Drop-in upgrade to Lua's stack traces which adds local context and improves readability.

Flexible and highly customizable testing library.

A tetris clone, written in literate style with "an emphasis on learn-from-ability".

Extremely lightweight, customizable, cross-platform editor, written (mostly) in (and scripted by) Lua.

Scientific computing framework with wide support for machine learning algorithms, used by Facebook, Google, and more.

Event-driven, non-blocking, LuaJIT-based networking suite and framework, inspired by Tornado.

Small library for tweening, with several easing functions.

A typed superset of Lua that compiles to plain Lua.

A pure C# implementation of Lua 5.2, focused on compatibility with the Unity game engine.

VSCode intellisense and linting.

A comprehensive list of stand-alone programs written in or extensible using Lua.

Sound/music/DSP engine written for LuaJIT.

Lightweight, customizable, cross-platform Lua-dedicated IDE with code completion and analysis, written in Lua. Has broad debugging support for numerous Lua engines.