# Awesome Lua

> A curated list of quality Lua packages and resources.

Inspired by the lists awesome, awesome-awesomeness, and awesome-nodejs.

## Packages

- Implementations, Interpreters, and Bindings
- Package Managers
- Build Tools and Standalone Makers
- Debugging and Profiling
- IDEs and Plugins
- Utility Belts
- Game Engines
- Game Development
- Logging
- Web/Networking Platforms
- OpenResty
- Command-line Utilities
- Concurrency and Multithreading
- Templating
- Documentation
- Object-oriented Programming
- File system and OS
- Time and Date
- Image Manipulation
- Digital Signal Processing
- Hardware and Embedded Systems
- Math and Scientific Computing
- Parsing and Serialization
- Humanize
- Compression
- Cryptography
- Network
- Data Stores
- Message Brokers
- Testing
- Foreign Function Interfaces
- Analysis Tools and ASTs
- Experimental, etc
- Scriptable by Lua
- Miscellaneous

## Resources

- Community
- References
- Style Guides
- Tutorials
- Articles
- Talks & Slides
- Books
- Other Lists

### Implementations, Interpreters, and Bindings

- Lua - Lua’s original ANSI C interpreter.
  - Lua Repo - The official Lua repo, as seen by the Lua team, mirrored to GitHub.
- LuaJIT - High-performance Just-In-Time compiler for Lua.
- LLVM-Lua - Compiles Lua to LLVM.
- lua.vm.js - Lua VM on the web; a direct port of the C interpreter via LLVM, emscripten, and asm.js.
- Moonshine - A Lua VM implemented in JavaScript. Slower than lua.vm.js, but with better docs, examples, and JS interfacing.
- Fengari - The Lua VM rewritten in Javascript with seamless JS and DOM interoperability.
- MoonSharp - A Lua interpreter written entirely in C# for the .NET, Mono and Unity platforms.
- UniLua - A pure C# implementation of Lua 5.2, focused on compatibility with the Unity game engine.
- lupa - Python bindings to LuaJIT2.
- golua - Golang bindings to the Lua C API.
- GopherLua - Lua 5.1 VM and compiler implemented in Go with Go APIs.
- LuaBridge - A lightweight library for mapping data, functions, and classes back and forth between C++ and Lua.

Note: From LuaJIT to Lua to lua.vm.js to Moonshine, a basic benchmark sees performance drop by roughly a factor of 6 with each hop.

### Package Managers

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

### Build Tools and Standalone Makers

- Lake - A build engine written in Lua, similar to Ruby’s rake.
- Luabuild - Highly customizable Lua 5.2 build system.
- luastatic - Simple tool for turning Lua programs into standalone executables.
- omnia - A batteries-included creator of standalone executables, built on top of luastatic.

### Debugging and Profiling

- ProFi - Simple profiler that works with LuaJIT and produces a report file.
- luatrace - Toolset for tracing/analyzing/profiling script execution and generating detailed reports.
- StackTracePlus - Drop-in upgrade to Lua’s stack traces which adds local context and improves readability.
- MobDebug - Powerful remote debugger with breakpoints and stack inspection. Used by ZeroBraneStudio.
- lovebird - Browser-based debug console. Originally made for LÖVE, but works in any project with LuaSocket support.

### IDEs and Plugins

- Lua Development Tools - Eclipse plugin which provides code completion, debugging, and more. Built on Metalua.
- Lua for IDEA - IntelliJ IDEA plugin which, among other things, provides code completion, smart highlighting, and experimental debugging.
- ZeroBraneStudio - Lightweight, customizable, cross-platform Lua-dedicated IDE with code completion and analysis, written in Lua. Has broad debugging support for numerous Lua engines.
- BabeLua - Lua editor/debugger extension for VS2012-13 with highlighting, auto-completion, linting, and formatting capabilities.
- lua-mode - Emacs major mode for editing Lua.
- vscode-lua - VSCode intellisense and linting.

### Utility Belts

- Lua Fun - High-performance functional programming library designed for LuaJIT.
- Moses - Functional programming utility belt, inspired by Underscore.js.
- Penlight - Broad, heavyweight utility library, inspired by Python’s standard libs. Provides the batteries that Lua doesn’t.
- lua-stdlib - Middle-weight standard library extension; adds some useful data structures, utility functions, and basic functional stuff.
- Microlight - A little library of useful Lua functions; the ‘extra light’ version of Penlight.
- compat53 - Compatibility module providing Lua-5.3-style APIs for Lua 5.2 and 5.1.
- RxLua - Reactive Extensions, Observables, etc.

### Game Engines

- LÖVE 2D - Desktop game development platform. Cross-platform, feature-complete, well-adopted.
- Corona SDK - Development platform for iOS and Android. Proprietary, but used by numerous top games and apps, totaling over 150 million downloads.
- MOAI - Open source, cross-platform, mobile game development framework. Minimalist C++ engine powered by Lua scripting.
- Drystal - Open source, games can run on Linux or on any platform with a recent web browser.
- Amulet - Open source, audio/visual toolkit suitable for small games and experimentation. It runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, HTML5 and iOS.
- LÖVR - 3D framework for creating virtual reality experiences, inspired by LÖVE 2D.

### Game Development

- Corona
  - Coronium - Simple cloud platform supporting analytics, data objects, user management, and more.
- LÖVE
  - awesome-love2d - A list like this one, but focused on game dev and the LÖVE platform.
  - lurker - Shortens the iteration cycle by auto-swapping changed Lua files in a running LÖVE project.
  - HUMP - A set of lightweight helpers for LÖVE; a game-oriented utility belt.
- MOAI
  - moaifiddle - Edit and share short scripts for the MOAI game engine and run them in the browser using WebGL.
- Jumper - Fast, lightweight, and easy-to-use pathfinding library for grid-based games.
- lume - Utility belt library geared toward game development.
- NoobHub - Network multiplayer for Corona, LÖVE, and more, following a simple pub-sub model.
- Collision detection
  - bump.lua - Minimal rectangle-based collision detection which handles tunnelling and basic collision resolution.
  - HardonCollider - Detect collisions between arbitrarily positioned and rotated shapes of any type.
- Tweening
  - flux - A fast, lightweight tweening library for Lua with easing functions and the ability to group tweens together.
  - tween.lua - Small library for tweening, with several easing functions.
- Examples
  - termtris - A tetris clone, written in literate style with “an emphasis on learn-from-ability”.
  - PacPac - A Pac-man clone, made with LÖVE.
  - Mari0 - Fusion of Mario and Portal, made with LÖVE. See also its wikipedia entry.
  - Journey to the Center of Hawkthorne - 2D platformer based on Community’s Digital Estate Planning episode, made with LÖVE.

### Logging

- lua-log - Asynchronous logging library with pluggable writers for file system, network, ZeroMQ, and more.
- LuaLogging - Log4j-inspired logging library supporting various appenders.
- luasyslog - Log to syslog, based on LuaLogging.

### Web/Networking Platforms

- OpenResty - 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.
- turbo - Event-driven, non-blocking, LuaJIT-based networking suite and framework, inspired by Tornado.
- Kepler Project - A collection of web-oriented projects using a common set of standards and components.
- Pegasus.lua - Pegasus.lua is a http server to work with web applications written in Lua language.

### OpenResty

- awesome-resty - A list like this one, but focused on OpenResty.
- Core platform
  - ngx_lua - 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).
  - OpenResty GitHub Organization - Home of the repositories for ngx_lua, ngx_openresty, and many related modules.
- Third-party modules
  - lua-resty-http - Lua HTTP client driver, built on the cosocket API.
- Frameworks & tools
  - Lapis - Full-stack framework for Lua and OpenResty. Like the Django or Rails of Lua. Supports Moonscript.
  - ledge - Lua module providing scriptable, RFC-compliant HTTP cache functionality.
  - Sailor — An MVC web framework compatible with OpenResty, Apache and other webservers.
  - Kong - Microservice & API Management Layer.

Search this page for ‘OpenResty’ to find related packages under other categories (data stores in particular).

### Command-line Utilities

- ansicolors - Simple function for printing to the console in color.
- cliargs - A simple command-line argument parsing module.
- lua-term - Terminal operations and manipulations.
- argparse - A feature-rich command line parser inspired by argparse for Python.

### Concurrency and Multithreading

- Coroutine-based multitasking:
  - Lumen - Simple concurrent task scheduling.
  - ConcurrentLua - Implements an Erlang-style message-passing concurrency model.
  - cqueues - Library for managing sockets, signals, and threads based on an event loop with coroutines.
- Multithreading:
  - llthreads - A simple wrapper for low-level pthreads & WIN32 threads.
  - llthreads2 - Newer rewrite of llthreads.
  - lanes - Library implementing a message passing model with one OS thread per Lua thread.
  - luaproc - Message-passing model which allows multiple threads per OS thread and easily generalizes across a network. See also the paper where it originated.

For more on the differences (particularly between `lanes` and `luaproc`), see this comparison of options; somewhat dated, but covers how each one works and the significant differences.

### Templating

- lustache - Mustache template implementation.
- etlua - Embedded Lua templates, ERB-style.
- lua-resty-template - Lua-oriented template engine for OpenResty, somewhat Jinja-like.

### Documentation

- LDoc - Documentation generator which modernizes and extends LuaDoc.
- Locco - Lua port of Docco, the “quick-and-dirty, hundred-line-long, literate-programming-style documentation generator”.
- docroc - Parse comments into a Lua table to generate documentation.

### Object-oriented Programming

- 30log - Minimalist OOP library with basic classes, inheritance, and mixins in 30 lines.
- middleclass - Simple but robust OOP library with inheritance, methods, metamethods, class variables and mixins.

### File system and OS

- LuaFileSystem - Extends and complements Lua’s built-in set of file system functions.
- luaposix - Bindings for POSIX APIs, including curses.
- lunix - Bindings to common Unix system APIs, striving for thread-safety.
- lua-path - File system path manipulation library.

### Time and Date

- LuaDate - Date and time module with parsing, formatting, addition/subtraction, localization, and ISO 8601 support.
- cron.lua - Time-related functions for Lua, inspired by JavaScript’s setTimeout and setInterval.
- luatx - Time, date, and timezone library.

### Image Manipulation

- magick - Lua bindings to ImageMagick for LuaJIT using FFI.

### Digital Signal Processing

- LuaFFT - An easy to use Fast Fourier Transformation package in pure Lua.
- Worp - Sound/music/DSP engine written for LuaJIT.

### Hardware and Embedded Systems

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

### Math and Scientific Computing

- SciLua - Numerical/scientific computing framework built on LuaJIT, with an interface to R.
- Torch7 - Scientific computing framework with wide support for machine learning algorithms, used by Facebook, Google, and more.
- lhf’s Lua Tools - Assorted libraries and tools, many math- or data-related.

### Parsing and Serialization

- JSON
  - lua-cjson - Blazing fast JSON encoding/decoding implemented in C and exposed to Lua.
  - luajson - JSON encoder/decoder implemented in Lua on top of LPeg.
  - dkjson - JSON encoder/decoder implemented in pure Lua.
  - json.lua - A fast and tiny JSON library in pure Lua.
- XML
  - LuaExpat - SAX XML parser via binding to the Expat library.
  - SLAXML - Pure Lua SAX-like streaming XML parser.
- MessagePack
  - lua-MessagePack - Pure Lua implementation of MessagePack.
  - lua-cmsgpack - A MessagePack C implementation with Lua bindings, as used by Redis.=
- LPeg
  - LPeg - A pattern-matching library for Lua, based on Parsing Expression Grammars.
  - lpeg_patterns - A collection of LPeg patterns.
  - LuLPeg - A pure Lua implementation of LPeg v0.12.
  - LPegLJ - A pure LuaJIT implementation of LPeg v1.0.
  - LPegLabel - An extension of LPeg adding support for labeled failures.
- lyaml - YAML encoding/decoding via binding to LibYAML.
- lunamark - Converts Markdown to other textual formats including HTML and LaTeX. Uses LPeg for fast parsing.
- LXSH - A collection of lexers and syntax highlighters written with LPeg.
- lua-pb - Protocol Buffers implementation.

### Humanize

- i18n.lua - Internationalization library with locales, formatting, and pluralization.
- inspect.lua - Human-readable representation of Lua tables.
- serpent - Serializer and pretty printer.
- Ser - Dead simple serializer with good performance.
- say - Simple string key-value store for i18n.

### Compression

- lua-zlib - Simple streaming interface to zlib for gzip/gunzip.
- lua-zip - Lua binding to libzip. Reads and writes zip files.

### Cryptography

- LuaCrypto - Lua bindings to OpenSSL.
- lua-lockbox - A collection of cryptographic primitives written in pure Lua.
- luatweetnacl - Bindings to tweetnacl, modern high-security cryptographic library.
- luaossl - “Most comprehensive OpenSSL module in the Lua universe” - used by lapis, kong, and lua-http.

### Network

- LuaSocket - Networking extension which provides a socket API for TCP and UDP, and implements HTTP, FTP, and SMTP.
- lua-websockets - WebSocket client and server modules. Webserver-agnostic, implemented in Lua on top of LuaSocket.
- lua-cURLv3 - Lua binding to libcurl.
- lua-http - Asynchronous HTTP and WebSocket library with client and server APIs, TLS, and HTTP/2; based on cqueues.

### Data Stores

- LuaSQL - Simple interface for connecting to ODBC, ADO, Oracle, MySQL, SQLite and PostgreSQL.
- pgmoon - Lua PostgreSQL driver for OpenResty, LuaSocket, and cqueues.
- lua-resty-mysql - Lua MySQL driver for OpenResty.
- lua-resty-cassandra - Lua Cassandra client driver for OpenResty and others.
- Redis
  - redis-lua - Pure Lua client library for Redis.
  - lua-resty-redis - Lua Redis client driver for OpenResty.
  - lredis - Asynchronous Redis client with pipelining and Pub/Sub support; based on cqueues.

### Message Brokers

- lua-zmq - Lua bindings to ZeroMQ.
- lzmq - A newer Lua binding to ZeroMQ.
- lua-resty-kafka - Kafka client driver based on OpenResty cosockets.
- lua-resty-rabbitmqstomp - RabbitMQ client library based on OpenResty cosockets.

### Testing

- busted - BDD-style unit testing framework with great docs and Moonscript support.
- telescope - Flexible and highly customizable testing library.
- luassert - Assertion library extending Lua’s built-in assertions.
- lust - Minimal test framework.

### Foreign Function Interfaces

- LuaJIT FFI - LuaJIT’s mechanism for calling external C functions and using C data structures from pure Lua code.
- luaffi - Standalone FFI library, compatible with the LuaJIT FFI interface.

### Analysis Tools and ASTs

- luadec51 - Lua Decompiler for Lua version 5.1.
- luacov - Simple coverage analyzer, used by busted and telescope for checking test coverage.
  - luacov-coveralls - LuaCov reporter for coveralls.io.
- luacheck - Simple static analyzer which detects accidental globals and undefined or shadowed locals.
- Metalua - Pure Lua parser and compiler, used for generating ASTs. A number of other tools make use of the Metalua parser in this way.
- LuaInspect - Lua’s most powerful code analysis and linting tool, built on Metalua. Used by ZeroBraneStudio, among others.
- LuaMinify - Minifier which also brings its own static analysis tools, lexer, and parser.
- Typed Lua - A typed superset of Lua that compiles to plain Lua.
- lua-parser - A Lua 5.3 parser written using LPegLabel, with improved error messages.

### Experimental, etc

- punchdrunk.js - Moonshine + LÖVE API reimplementation = run LÖVE games in the browser.
- luvit - Node.js’s underlying architecture (libUV) with Lua on top instead of JavaScript.
- graphql-lua - Lua implementation of GraphQL.

### Scriptable by Lua

- luakit - Fast, small, webkit based browser framework extensible by Lua.
- Hammerspoon - A powerful, extensible OS X automation tool. A community-maintained fork of Mjolnir.
- kpie - A scripting utility to juggle windows.
- lumail - A console-based mail client, with extensive scripting capabilities.
- AwesomeWM - A highly configurable and extensible window manager for X, scripted and configured by Lua.
- Textadept - Extremely lightweight, customizable, cross-platform editor, written (mostly) in (and scripted by) Lua.
- KoReader - An ebook reader application supports PDF, DJVU, EPUB, FB2 and much more, running on Kindle, Kobo, PocketBook and Android devices.

### Miscellaneous

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

## Resources

### Community

- lua-l - The official Lua mailing list, and one of the focal points of the Lua community.
- Lua.Space - The Lua community blog.
- Lua Users Foundation - An association of individuals with the mission of supporting and promoting Lua and its community and ecosystems.
- lua-users.org - A site for and by users of Lua, featuring an IRC channel, a web archive of lua-l, and a large wiki.
- Conferences/Meetups
  - Lua Workshop - Annual 2-day meeting of the Lua community, in rotating locations.
  - Lua Conf - Annual 1-day Lua conference in Brazil.
  - FOSDEM - Annual 2-day gathering of F/OSS developers in Brussels which sometimes has a “Lua devroom”.

### References

- Reference Manual - The official definition of the Lua language.
- lua-users wiki - A large community-maintained collection of Lua information and resources, supplementing the official website.
- Lua Unofficial FAQ - Answers all sorts of Lua-related questions, including many of the form ’How to ___?’.

### Glossaries

- Lua 5.3 Glossary - A glossary of some essential Lua terms.

### Style Guides

- Lua-users style guide - A general, high-level style guide; unopinionated, easily agreed on.
- Olivine style guide - A more opinionated and specific, and therefore more rigorous, guide.

### Tutorials

- Lua Crash Course - Short crash course readover, or reference for when you forget the basics.
- Learn Lua in 15 Minutes - A well-commented example file which covers the basics.
- Learning Lua from JS - An overview of the similarities and differences between Lua and JS; a great start for JavaScript folks looking to pick up Lua.
- lua-users tutorial - In-depth collection of tutorials aimed at newcomers.
- Lua Missions - A series of ‘Missions’ to work through which are designed to teach aspects of Lua along the way.
- Creating an Image Server - Walks through setting up and using OpenResty to build a simple image processing server; a great starting point for playing with OpenResty.

### Articles

- Embedding Lua in C - An introductory walkthrough of embedding Lua in a C program. A bit dated, but still a great walkthrough.
- Lua: Good, bad, and ugly parts - A thorough summary of the good, different, bad, and ugly aspects of Lua, including many subtle quirks, by the author of ZeroBraneStudio.
- Lua states, libraries, coroutines and memory - Diagrams and explains some more advanced concepts of the Lua VM, particularly when interfacing with C.

### Talks & Slides

- Roberto’s Talks - History of talks given by Lua’s chief architect, with slides for each.
- Lua Workshop Talks - High-quality talks are given at each ~annual Lua Workshop, and a history of them is online, slides included.

### Books

- Programming in Lua - The authoritative intro to all aspects of Lua programming, written by Lua’s chief architect. Three editions released; first edition available online.
- Lua Quick Reference - A quick reference on how to program in and embed Lua 5.1 through 5.3, by the creator of Textadept.
- Programming Gems - A collection of articles covering existing wisdom and practices on programming well in Lua, in a broad variety of use cases.
- Lua Programming - A shorter overview of the language, up to date for Lua 5.2, and available online.

### Other Lists

- awesome-resty - A list like this one, but focused on OpenResty.
- awesome-love2d - A list like this one, but focused on game dev and the LÖVE platform.
- Where Lua is Used - A comprehensive list of stand-alone programs written in or extensible using Lua.

## Contribute

Contributions welcome and wanted! Read the contribution guidelines first.

## License

To the extent possible under law, Lewis Ellis has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work.

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