Resources / Implementations, Interpreters, and Bindings
- LuaJIT - High-performance Just-In-Time compiler for Lua.
- Moonshine (⭐493) - A Lua VM implemented in JavaScript. Slower than lua.vm.js, but with better docs, examples, and JS interfacing.
Resources / Debugging and Profiling
- ProFi - Simple profiler that works with LuaJIT and produces a report file.
- luatrace (⭐157) - Toolset for tracing/analyzing/profiling script execution and generating detailed reports.
- StackTracePlus (⭐180) - Drop-in upgrade to Lua's stack traces which adds local context and improves readability.
- MobDebug (⭐778) - Powerful remote debugger with breakpoints and stack inspection. Used by ZeroBraneStudio.
Resources / IDEs and Plugins
- Lua for IDEA - IntelliJ IDEA plugin which, among other things, provides code completion, smart highlighting, and experimental debugging.
Resources / Utility Belts
- Moses (⭐590) - Functional programming utility belt, inspired by Underscore.js.
- Penlight (⭐1.6k) - Broad, heavyweight utility library, inspired by Python's standard libs. Provides the batteries that Lua doesn't.
- lua-stdlib (⭐259) - Middle-weight standard library extension; adds some useful data structures, utility functions, and basic functional stuff.
- Microlight (⭐156) - A little library of useful Lua functions; the 'extra light' version of Penlight.
Resources / Game Engines
- LÖVE 2D - Desktop game development platform. Cross-platform, feature-complete, well-adopted.
Resources / Game Development
- Jumper (⭐575) - Fast, lightweight, and easy-to-use pathfinding library for grid-based games.
- lume (⭐761) - Utility belt library geared toward game development.
- NoobHub (⭐273) - Network multiplayer for Corona, LÖVE, and more, following a simple pub-sub model.
- Collision detection
- bump.lua (⭐769) - Minimal rectangle-based collision detection which handles tunnelling and basic collision resolution.
- HardonCollider - Detect collisions between arbitrarily positioned and rotated shapes of any type.
Resources / 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.
Resources / Command-line Utilities
Resources / Concurrency and Multithreading
- Multithreading:
- llthreads (⭐141) - A simple wrapper for low-level pthreads & WIN32 threads.
- llthreads2 (⭐69) - Newer rewrite of llthreads.
- lanes (⭐381) - Library implementing a message passing model with one OS thread per Lua thread.
- luaproc (⭐105) - Message-passing model which allows multiple threads per OS thread and easily generalizes across a network. See also the paper where it originated.
Resources / Templating
- lustache - Mustache template implementation.
Resources / Documentation
- LDoc - Documentation generator which modernizes and extends LuaDoc.
Resources / Object-oriented Programming
- 30log (⭐381) - Minimalist OOP library with basic classes, inheritance, and mixins in 30 lines.
- middleclass (⭐1.5k) - Simple but robust OOP library with inheritance, methods, metamethods, class variables and mixins.
Resources / File system and OS
Resources / Time and Date
- LuaDate (⭐225) - Date and time module with parsing, formatting, addition/subtraction, localization, and ISO 8601 support.
- cron.lua (⭐149) - Time-related functions for Lua, inspired by JavaScript's setTimeout and setInterval.
Resources / Image Manipulation
- magick (⭐362) - Lua bindings to ImageMagick for LuaJIT using FFI.
Resources / Math and Scientific Computing
- Torch7 - Scientific computing framework with wide support for machine learning algorithms, used by Facebook, Google, and more.
Resources / Parsing and Serialization
- XML
- LuaExpat - SAX XML parser via binding to the Expat library.
- SLAXML (⭐141) - Pure Lua SAX-like streaming XML parser.
- lunamark (⭐166) - Converts Markdown to other textual formats including HTML and LaTeX. Uses LPeg for fast parsing.
Resources / Humanize
- i18n.lua (⭐218) - Internationalization library with locales, formatting, and pluralization.
- Ser (⭐72) - Dead simple serializer with good performance.
Resources / Compression
- lua-zip (⭐69) - Lua binding to libzip. Reads and writes zip files.
Resources / Data Stores
Resources / Testing
- busted - BDD-style unit testing framework with great docs and Moonscript support.
Resources / Foreign Function Interfaces
- LuaJIT FFI - LuaJIT's mechanism for calling external C functions and using C data structures from pure Lua code.
- luaffi (⭐441) - Standalone FFI library, compatible with the LuaJIT FFI interface.
Resources / Analysis Tools and ASTs
- luacheck (⭐1.7k) - Simple static analyzer which detects accidental globals and undefined or shadowed locals.
- Metalua (⭐324) - Pure Lua parser and compiler, used for generating ASTs. A number of other tools make use of the Metalua parser in this way.
- LuaInspect (⭐160) - Lua's most powerful code analysis and linting tool, built on Metalua. Used by ZeroBraneStudio, among others.
- LuaMinify (⭐231) - Minifier which also brings its own static analysis tools, lexer, and parser.
Resources / Experimental, etc
- luvit (⭐3.6k) - Node.js's underlying architecture (libUV) with Lua on top instead of JavaScript.
Resources / Scriptable by Lua
- kpie (⭐76) - A scripting utility to juggle windows.
Resources / 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 / References
- lua-users wiki - A large community-maintained collection of Lua information and resources, supplementing the official website.
Resources / Style Guides
Resources / Tutorials
- Lua Crash Course - Short crash course readover, or reference for when you forget 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 Missions (⭐318) - 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.
Resources / Articles
- 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.
Resources / 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.
Resources / 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.
- Programming Gems - A collection of articles covering existing wisdom and practices on programming well in Lua, in a broad variety of use cases.
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