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Top 23 common-lisp Open-Source Projects
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Project mention: Tell HN: uBlock Origin on Chrome is finally gone | news.ycombinator.com | 2025-07-11
The pre-release AppImages that John Mercouris is working hard on are getting verrry solid, if you get an hour I recommend a play around :)
https://github.com/atlas-engineer/nyxt/releases
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for folks looking for libraries: https://github.com/CodyReichert/awesome-cl/
(I don't know for popularity but my personal opinion is that CL is still unmatched: this level of interactive development + good debugging tools + excellent implementation that compiles to fast machine code + fast startup for binaries + self-contained binaries + stable yet improving language, implementations and ecosystem + connect from a running program + commercial vendors if you need + … such a unique and productive set)
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Project mention: GitHub is no longer independent at Microsoft after CEO resignation | news.ycombinator.com | 2025-08-11
When I get fed up with VSCode, I run Emacs and I feel happy until I start working on something else that can be done a little faster on VSCode because of the available extensions.
I feel like we almost need government intervention to keep GitHub an open commons, but I am a Libertarian and I distrust the government perhaps even more than the tech industry - still an open question for me.
Lock in and control by huge corporations is almost always uniformly bad. I have accepted the message of great books like Privacy is Power, The Tech Coup, and Surveillance Capitalism, and I feel pretty good about just using Google’s Gemini APIs when I need them, and lean as hard as possible on open models running on Ollama and LM Studio. There are also little things you can do like now install apps and use web apps.
Back to test editors: the Lem Emacs-like editor written in Common Lisp is an interesting project https://github.com/lem-project/lem
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Project mention: From C++ to Clojure: New Language Promises Best of Both | news.ycombinator.com | 2025-01-30
I remember claps [1] (a Lisp with C++ interoperation), but it seems almost frozen (a quick glimpse). So I think this could follow the same path, yes I am a bit pessimistic, claps seems a very good idea but it did not pan out to expectation.
https://github.com/clasp-developers/clasp
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Oversimplifying, there are three big variants: Common Lisp, Scheme, Clojure. Each of them has a lot of somewhat similar implementations:
* Clojure: A lot of support for immutable data. It runs in the JVM so you will have a lot of the libraries you are use to. Probably the best option for you. https://clojure.org/
* Scheme, in particular Racket: Mostly functional, and in particular Racket has a lot of support to make your own variant. This is the option I prefer but I have to disclaim it's a biased recommendation. https://racket-lang.org/
* Common Lisp: I heard a lot of good things about SBCL, in particular to add anotations to make the code faster https://www.sbcl.org/
> why this language is so special
Macros, everyone use macros, too many at the beginning, but a few where they are really necessary later.
#lang racket -
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Project mention: Seed: Interactive software environment based on Common Lisp | news.ycombinator.com | 2025-08-23
CLOG [1] seems to do something similar (though it's hard to tell; Seed's README isn't terribly informative), except CLOG has more tutorials, is better documented, has a more fleshed out README, and has ongoing support.
[1] https://github.com/rabbibotton/clog
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sketch
A Common Lisp framework for the creation of electronic art, visual design, game prototyping, game making, computer graphics, exploration of human-computer interaction, and more. (by vydd)
Project mention: Manim: Animation engine for explanatory math videos | news.ycombinator.com | 2025-08-23 -
coalton
Coalton is an efficient, statically typed functional programming language that supercharges Common Lisp.
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Project mention: The Symbolics Genera Programming Environment (1987) | news.ycombinator.com | 2024-09-21
[1] https://github.com/joaotavora/sly
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Project mention: Neomacs: Structural Lisp IDE/browser/computing environment | news.ycombinator.com | 2024-11-23
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Unfortunately CCL is Intel only on macOS. (macOS is not on the the main page https://ccl.clozure.com)
Otherwise this is the one I would use as it has good Cocoa interoperability.
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https://github.com/fukamachi/caveman/ (I like Mito and Djula, I'd go with Hunchentoot rather than Clack which is famously undocumented)
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Project mention: Ask HN: Resources for Learning Graphics Programming | news.ycombinator.com | 2024-09-24
https://github.com/kaveh808/kons-9 for 3d
on my to-play-with list for a little moment now, waiting for a chance.
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Project mention: Ask HN: Whats the difference between qlot vs. ocicl? (SBCL package managers) | news.ycombinator.com | 2024-09-22
Maybe we can share our experience here?
Question derived from thread[3] where this discussion started.
[1] https://github.com/fukamachi/qlot
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NOTE:
The open source projects on this list are ordered by number of github stars.
The number of mentions indicates repo mentiontions in the last 12 Months or
since we started tracking (Dec 2020).
common-lisp discussion
common-lisp related posts
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Lisp from Nothing, Second Edition
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Seed: Interactive software environment based on Common Lisp
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Common Lisp: a command-line interactive terminal application in 2 lines
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Tell HN: uBlock Origin on Chrome is finally gone
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Notes on Paul Graham's ANSI Common Lisp Book
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Show HN: A Truth Table Generator Written in Common Lisp
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Which Lisp? Beginner
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A note from our sponsor - InfluxDB
www.influxdata.com | 1 Sep 2025
Index
What are some of the best open-source common-lisp projects? This list will help you:
| # | Project | Stars |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | nyxt | 10,635 |
| 2 | pgloader | 5,995 |
| 3 | klipse | 3,133 |
| 4 | awesome-cl | 2,813 |
| 5 | lem | 2,721 |
| 6 | clasp | 2,681 |
| 7 | sbcl | 1,983 |
| 8 | slime | 1,982 |
| 9 | roswell | 1,846 |
| 10 | clog | 1,669 |
| 11 | sketch | 1,456 |
| 12 | coalton | 1,434 |
| 13 | sly | 1,354 |
| 14 | woo | 1,341 |
| 15 | lispy | 1,250 |
| 16 | cl-cookbook | 991 |
| 17 | jscl | 910 |
| 18 | ccl | 902 |
| 19 | caveman | 798 |
| 20 | portacle | 748 |
| 21 | hunchentoot | 718 |
| 22 | kons-9 | 625 |
| 23 | qlot | 520 |
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