Embedded scripting languages

The following is a list of reasonably mature or actively developed open source embedded scripting languages to use in your application. Stretching the definition of a scripting language, it also includes Datalog implementations. Items with a strong copyleft license (like the GNU GPL) that will apply to the rest of your code are emphasized as a warning.

To sort and filter the list interactively, visit the webpage. To contribute, go to the GitHub project.

Contents

• Embedded scripting languages
  • List
  • See also
  • Contributing
  • License
  • Disclosure

List

Language	Project name/link	Implementated in	GC	License	Notes
Ada	HAC	Ada	None (stack only)	MIT	HAC implements a subset of the Ada language. Thus, it can share sources with the embedding application.
AngelScript	AngelScript	C++	Ref. counting + cycle-detecting tracing GC	Zlib	A statically typed curly brace language resembling C++ itself.
Anko	Anko	Go	Go's GC	MIT	Scriptable interpreter with syntax similar to Go.
ArkScript	ArkScript	C++	None (resource release is destruction + optional manual MM)	MPL-2.0	A small functional Lisp-like programming language. Separate bytecode compiler and VM.
Asp	Asp	C	Ref. counting inside a static memory area	MIT	Python-like. Targets embedded systems. Allows blocking calls in scripts without blocking the application. Runs compiled bytecode. Not related to Microsoft's Active Server Pages.
Awk	Libmawk	C	Ref. counting	GPL-2.0	Implements Awk. A fork of mawk 1.3 restructured for embedding.
Awk, Basic, Pascal	Libfawk	C	Ref. counting	BSD-3-Clause	A multi-language VM. Includes compilers for three languages: Fawk (Awk dialect), Fbas (Basic dialect), and Fpas (Pascal dialect).
Basic	MY-BASIC	C	Ref. counting + cycle-detecting tracing GC	MIT	A Basic dialect with prototype-based OOP.
Berry	Berry	C	Tracing	MIT	Lightweight dynamically-typed embedded scripting language designed for lower-performance devices with limited memory.
Boron	Boron	C	Tracing	LGPL-3.0-or-later	An embeddable scripting language similar to Rebol.
C	PicoC	C	None (manual MM)	BSD-3-Clause	Statically typed. Interprets a subset of C.
C	tcc	C	None	LGPL-2.0-only	A small C compiler that can be used as a library for a C JIT. libtcc header. Embedding example.
C#, other CLR languages	Mono	C	Tracing	MIT and other	Implements the CLR.
ChaiScript	ChaiScript	C++	Ref. counting	BSD-3-Clause	A header-only C++14 interpreter library.
Clojure	sci	Clojure	host VM's GC	EPL-1.0	An interpreter for a subset of Clojure for Clojure and ClojureScript.
Common Expression Language (CEL)	cel-go	Go	Go's GC	Apache-2.0	A non-Turing-complete expression language.
Common Expression Language (CEL)	cel-python	Python	Python's GC	Apache-2.0	A non-Turing-complete expression language.
Common Expression Language (CEL)	cel-rust	Rust	None	MIT	A non-Turing-complete expression language.
Common Lisp	Clasp	Common Lisp, C++	MPS GC (Boehm-Weiser also supported)	LGPL-2.0-or-later	Full Common Lisp implementation well integrated with C++, using LLVM for the code generation, to integrate closely with C++ applications or libraries.
Common Lisp	Embeddable Common Lisp	Common Lisp, C	Boehm-Weiser GC	LGPL-2.0-or-later	Full Common Lisp implementation, available as a shared library libecl.so embeddable in any C, C++ or other application.
daScript	daScript	C++	None (region-based + manual MM?)	BSD-3-Clause	A statically-typed performance-oriented scripting language.
Datalog	AbcDatalog	Java	JVM's GC	BSD-3-Clause	Implements Datalog.
Datalog	Cascalog	Clojure	JVM's GC	Apache-2.0	Implements Datalog.
Datalog	Datalog (c-cube)	OCaml	OCaml's GC	BSD-2-Clause	Implements Datalog.
Datalog	Datalog (fogfish)	Erlang	None (no collection inside interpreter state)	Apache-2.0	Implements Datalog.
Datalog	Datalog (MITRE Corporation)	C	Tracing (Lua's GC)	LGPL-2.0-or-later	Implements Datalog. It is implemented on top of Lua 5.3 and can be extended with Lua functions.
Dhall	Dhall	Haskell	Haskell's GC	BSD-3-Clause	A statically-typed functional configuration language. Not Turing-complete. Untrusted code: can't access the file system, can fetch Dhall libraries over HTTP(S) from static URLs (but libraries aren't allowed to access your data), can use up memory and CPU time for a DoS attack. Has a work-in-progress Clojure and Ruby implementation.
DWScript	DWScript	Object Pascal (Delphi 2009 or later)	Ref. counting + cycle-detecting tracing GC	MPL-1.1, GPL-3.0 (JavaScript code generator)	Description. A statically typed Delphi/Free Pascal-like language. Can compile to JavaScript.
Dyon	Dyon	Rust	None (Rust-style lifetimes)	Apache-2.0 or MIT	Has optional, optimistic (succeed-by-default) static type checking.
Expr	Expr	Go	Go's GC	MIT	Compiles and evaluates statically-typed expressions.
Falcon	Falcon	C++	Tracing	GPL-2.0 or custom	The GC is pluggable.
fe	fe	C	Tracing	MIT	Uses a fixed-size memory region. No malloc.
Forth	Atlast	C	None (manual MM)	Public domain	A dialect of Forth originally developed at Autodesk.
Forth	FTH	C	Tracing	BSD-2-Clause	A dialect of Forth with objects, hashes, regular expressions, and other extensions.
Forth	pForth	C	None (manual MM)	Public domain	A dialect of Forth.
GameMonkey Script	GameMonkey Script	C++	Tracing	MIT	Comes with C bindings. Similar to Lua, multithreaded.
Gentee	Gentee	Go	Go's GC	MIT	Statically typed.
gluon	gluon	Rust	Tracing	MIT	Statically typed. Inspired by Lua, Haskell, and OCaml. Each executing gluon thread gets a separate heap.
Go	Yaegi	Go	Go's GC	Apache-2.0	An embedded complete Go interpreter, on top of the Go runtime.
Gravity	Gravity	C	Tracing	MIT	A class-based concurrent scripting language with a Swift-like syntax.
Groovy	Groovy	Java	JVM's GC	Apache-2.0	A scripting language for the JVM. A large subset of Java is valid Groovy. Integrating Groovy into applications.
Haxe	HashLink	C	Tracing (lazy sweep)	MIT	A bytecode interpreter and a baseline JIT compiler (x86/x86_64 only) for Haxe.
Haxe, others	Neko	C	Boehm	MIT	The NekoVM is a target for several compilers, including Haxe.
Interpreter	Interpreter	C++	None	MIT	A small interpreter in one header and one source code file with optional extensions (arithmetic operations, containers, filesystem, and others).
Io	Io	C	Tracing	BSD-3-Clause	A prototype-based OO language.
Janet	Janet	C	Tracing	MIT	A functional and imperative language with a Lisp syntax.
Java	BeanShell	Java	JVM's GC	Apache-2.0	An small, embeddable Java source code interpreter. Understands Java code with certain extensions like method closures.
JavaScript	Duktape	C	Ref. counting + cycle-detecting tracing GC	MIT	Implements JavaScript E5/E5.1.
JavaScript	Espruino	C	Tracing	MPL-2.0	Implements a subset of JavaScript ES5 in a way suitable for embedded hardware with 8+ KiB RAM.
JavaScript	Goja	Go	Go's GC	MIT	Implements ECMAScript 5.1. Better standard compliance and performance than otto.
JavaScript	GraalJS	C++, C, Java	JVM's GC	UPL-1.0	Implements ECMAScript 2022 for GraalVM (HotSpot JVM) using Truffle.
JavaScript	JerryScript	C	Tracing	Apache-2.0	A full ECMAScript 5.1 interpreter written in C99 and optimized for low memory consumption. Uses CMake.
JavaScript	jsish	C	Ref. counting	MIT	A JavaScript ES 5.2+ interpreter. Internally structured after Tcl with an extensive C API. Features include subinterpreters, introspection, SQLite bindings, and a web framework with WebSocket support. The code is valid C and C++.
JavaScript	MuJS	C	Tracing	ISC	Implements JavaScript (ES5). Has a similar C interface to Lua.
JavaScript	njs	C	None (no collection performed)	BSD-2-Clause	Implements a subset of ES5.1 with some ES6 extensions.
JavaScript	otto	Go	Go's GC	MIT	Implements ES5 with some limitations.
JavaScript	QuickJS	C	Ref. counting + cycle-detecting tracing GC	MIT	A small embedded JavaScript interpreter that implements almost all of ES2019 and much of ES2020.
Jinx	Jinx	C++17	Ref. counting	MIT	Designed for use in realtime applications such as video games.
Jsonnet	Jsonnet	C++	Tracing	Apache-2.0	A functional configuration language that extends JSON. Untrusted code: can't access the file system or network, can use up memory and CPU time for a DoS attack. Has bindings for C, C++, Go, Python, and other languages, as well as a separate native Go implementation.
Ketos	Ketos	Rust	None (no heap allocation)?	Apache-2.0	A functional Lisp.
LIL	LIL	C, Object Pascal (separate implementations)	None (no reference support)	Zlib	A Tcl-like language incompatible with mainline Tcl.
Lily	Lily	C	Ref. counting + tracing GC	MIT	A language focusing on expressiveness and safety.
ljs	ljs	C	Tracing	MIT	Lua 5.3, Lua 5.1, and LuaJIT with a C/C++/Java/JavaScript syntax. Can convert Lua source code to ljs.
Lua	Go-Lua	Go	Go's GC	MIT	Implements a subset of Lua 5.2.
Lua	GopherLua	Go	Go's GC	MIT	Implements Lua 5.1 with the added support for Go's channels. Lacks the debug hooks and several functions from the C version.
Lua	Lua	C	Tracing	MIT	The reference implementation of what is likely the world's most popular embedded scripting language. Allows you to precompile scripts to bytecode. Versions 5.1-5.3, which are the ones used today, are not fully compatible with each other.
Lua	LuaJ	Java	JVM's GC	MIT	A Lua 5.2 spec-compliant interpreter written in Java for JME and JSE. Complies Lua directly to JVM bytecode.
Lua	LuaJIT	C	Tracing	MIT	Fully compatible with Lua 5.1. Has a built-in C FFI library. Performance comparison.
Lua	Lua-ML	OCaml	OCaml's GC	BSD-2-Clause	Embeddable Lua 2.5 reimplementation that integrates with OCaml type and module system. It's possible to extend or even replace the standard library with your own modules.
Lua	Luau	C	Tracing	MIT	Roblox fork of Lua 5.1 as a scripting language for games to support a gradual type system as well as limiting the set of standard libraries exposed to the users and implements extra sandboxing features to be able to run unprivileged code. Whenever possible, Luau aims to be backwards-compatible with Lua 5.1 and at the same time to incorporate features from later revisions of Lua.
Lua	luerl	Erlang	Tracing	Apache-2.0	An implementation of Lua 5.2 in pure Erlang with some features like goto absent.
Lua	MoonSharp	C#	CLR's GC	BSD-3-Clause and other	CLR Based Lua implementation that is 99% compatible with Lua 5.2
Lua	Ravi	C	Tracing	MIT	“Ravi is a dialect of Lua with limited optional static typing and features a JIT compiler powered by MIR as well as support for AOT compilation to native code.”
Moirai	Moirai	Kotlin	JVM's GC	MIT	A scripting language that calculates the worst-case execution time (WCET) before executing each script. Optimized for multi-tenant microservices and serverless applications.
Mond	Mond	C#	CLR's GC	MIT	A dynamically typed scripting language with generators, async, remote debugging, and a binding API.
Never	Never	C	Tracing	MIT	A statically typed functional programming language.
Nickel	Nickel	Rust	Ref. counting	MIT	A configuration language with gradual typing and contracts. Python bindings.
Pascal	Pascal Script	Object Pascal	None (manual MM)	modified zlib/libpng-License with mandatory attribution	Statically typed. Implements "most of Object Pascal". Can't define new classes.
Pawn	Pawn	C	None (no heap allocation)	Apache-2.0 with a clause to explicitly permit static linking	A curly-brace language with a small-footprint VM. Represents data as 4/8-byte "cells". Compiles to CPU-specific bytecode. More.
Perl	Perl	C	Ref. counting	Artistic-2.0 or GPL-3.0	Embedding Perl in Another Application
PHP	ephp	Erlang	None (no collection inside interpreter state)	LGPL-2.1-or-later	Implements a subset of PHP 5.5.
PHP	PH7	C	Ref. counting	Symisc Public License or proprietary	Implements a subset of PHP 5.3 with some changes like native UTF-8 support.
Pluto	Pluto	C++	Tracing	MIT	A superset of Lua 5.4 (outside of incompatibilies caused by new syntax). Adds syntax like !=, break, and string interpolation; expands the standard library; somewhat improves performance.
pocketlang	pocketlang	C	Tracing	MIT	A small language syntactically similar to Ruby. Embedding examples. Performance comparison.
Prolog	Erlog	Erlang	None ()	Apache-2.0	Interprets a subset of standard Prolog.
Prolog	Golog	Go	Go's GC	MIT	Implements a subset of standard Prolog.
Python	CircuitPython	C	Tracing	MIT	A fork of MicroPython, designed for API uniformity across many microcontrollers.
Python	gpython	Go	Go's GC	BSD-3-Clause	Implements a subset of Python 3.4.
Python	GraalPy	C, Java	JVM's GC	UPL-1.0	Implements Python 3 for GraalVM (HotSpot JVM) using Truffle.
Python	Jython	Java	JVM's GC	PSFL (BSD-like)	An implementation of Python 2 for the JVM.
Python	MicroPython	C	Tracing	MIT	Implements Python 3.4 syntax and some of the core datatypes.
Python	PikaPython	C	Ref. counting	MIT	Implements a variant of Python 3. The degree of compatibility with Python seems to be undocumented. Runs in as little as 4 KiB of RAM. Targets microcontrollers and Linux.
Python	pocketpy	C++	Tracing	MIT	Implements a subset of Python 3 (with some differences) in a single C++17 header file.
Python	Python	C	Ref. counting + cycle-detecting tracing GC	PSFL (BSD-like)	"Embedding Python in Another Application".
QuakeC	gmqcc/qcvm	C++	None (no dynamic memory allocation)	MIT	A QuakeC compiler and VM.
Quirrel	Quirrel	C++	Ref. counting	MIT	A fork of Squirrel with new features.
Rebol	Rebol	C	Tracing	Apache-2.0	Relative Expression Based Object Language
Red	Red	Rebol, Red, Red/System	Tracing	BSD-3-Clause, BSL-1.0	A descendant of Rebol. Embeddable via libRed. Features a cross-platform native GUI system. Intended to have low memory usage.
Rexx	NetRexx	Java	JVM's GC	ICU (BSD-like)
Rexx	ooRexx	C++	Tracing	CPL	Implements Rexx extended with objects.
Rhai	Rhai	Rust	None (Rust-style lifetimes)	MIT or Apache-2.0	An embedded scripting language for Rust inspired by ChaiScript.
Ring	Ring	C	Tracing	MIT	An embeddable applications programming language with a large standard library and GIL-less multithreading.
Ruby	JRuby	Java	JVM's GC	Choice of EPL, GPL, and LGPL	An implementation of Ruby on the JVM.
Ruby	mruby	C	Tracing	MIT	A lightweight implementation of Ruby. Has a compile-time package manager.
Ruby	mruby/c	C	Ref. counting	BSD-3-Clause	An even smaller implementation of Ruby for microcontrollers with limited memory.
Ruby	Ruby	C	Tracing	Choice of BSD-2-Clause, Ruby license, GPL-2.0	An embeddable object-oriented scripting language. Running Ruby in C.
Ruby	TruffleRuby	C, Java	JVM's GC	UPL-1.0	Implements Ruby for GraalVM (HotSpot JVM) using Truffle.
Rune	Rune	Rust	Ref. counting	MIT or Apache-2.0	An embeddable dynamic programming language. Asynchronous-first and const-evaluation.
Scheme	Animula	C	Tracing	Compiler: GPL-3.0-or-later, VM: LGPL-3.0-or-later	An optimizing compiler and VM for embedded systems. R7RS.
Scheme	Chibi Scheme	C	Tracing	BSD-3-Clause	Implements R7RS small.
Scheme	CHICKEN Scheme	C	Tracing	BSD-3-Clause	Implements R5RS (with some changes). R7RS support is a work in progress. Examples of embedding CHICKEN.
Scheme	GNU Guile	C	Boehm	LGPL-3.0-or-later	"Guile mostly implements R6RS."
Scheme	Kawa	Java	JVM's GC	MIT	R7RS. Supports the javax.script API. Evaluating Scheme expressions from Java.
Scheme	s7	C	Tracing	BSD-3-Clause	Implements a subset of R5RS/R7RS. Descended from TinyScheme.
Scheme	Steel	Rust	Ref. counting + tracing GC	Apache-2.0 or MIT	Aims for eventual R5RS and R7RS compliance. Has extensions inspired by Racket.
Scheme	TinyScheme	C	Tracing?	BSD-3-Clause	Implements a subset of R5RS.
SGScript	SGScript	C	Ref. counting + tracing CG	MIT	Features include a built-in data serialization format, coroutines, class-based OOP, sandboxed evaluation, a built-in debugger and profiler.
Shine	Shine	C	Tracing	MIT	A language based on Lua with additional safety and expressiveness features implemented as a fork of LuaJIT.
simpleeval	simpleeval	Python	Python's GC	MIT	Evaluates expressions in a subset of Python.
Snek	Snek	C	Tracing	GPL-3.0-or-later	A Python-inspired language. Targets "processors too small to run MicroPython".
SquiLu	SquiLu	C++	Ref. counting	MIT, some extensions LGPL or GPL	A fork of Squirrel. Changes the syntax to accept a subset of JavaScript and C/C++. Implements Lua's features like string pattern matching and global table manipulation functions. Adds extensions for database access (SQLite3, MySQL, PostgreSQL), sockets, and other features.
Squirrel	Squirrel	C++	Ref. counting	MIT	A language inspired by Lua and JavaScript/Python. Has a Lua-like C++ API. Differentiates itself from Lua with the use of reference counting in place of Lua's tracing GC, a curly-brace syntax, built-in class-based OOP, and zero-indexed arrays.
Starlark	Starlark (Go)	Go	Go's GC	BSD-3-Clause	A small dialect of Python for configuration. Not Turing-complete. Untrusted code: can't access the file system and network, can use up memory and CPU to perform a DoS attack. Spec. Python bindings.
Starlark	Starlark (Java)	Java	JVM's GC	Apache-2.0	Starlark for the JVM. The original implementation.
Starlark	Starlark (Rust)	Rust	?	Apache-2.0	Starlark in Rust. Python bindings.
Tcl	Jim Tcl	C	Tracing	BSD-2-Clause	Largely compatible with Tcl 8.5 with its own additions.
Tcl	JTcl	Java	Ref. counting	Various BSD-like	Tcl 8.4 with some 8.5 features for the JVM.
Tcl	Molt	Rust	Ref. counting	BSD-3-Clause	A minimal Tcl implementation for Rust applications and libraries.
Tcl	Picol	C	None (no reference support)	BSD-2-Clause	A header-only library interpreter for a limited dialect of Tcl.
Tcl	Tcl	C	Ref. counting	Tcl license (BSD-like)	An embeddable general-purpose scripting language with a rich C API. Has a cross-platform GUI toolkit called Tk. How to embed Tcl in C applications.
Toy	Toy	C	Ref. counting	Zlib	Has an optional type system. Embedding Toy.
Umka	Umka	C	Ref. counting	BSD-2-Clause	Statically typed.
Wirefilter	Wirefilter	Rust	None (no dynamic memory allocation)	MIT	An expression language for Wireshark-like filters.
Wren	Wren	C	Tracing	MIT	A small class-based performance-oriented scripting language. Performance comparison.
ZetScript	ZetScript	C++	Ref. counting	MIT	Comes with an API for C++ interop.
zygomys	zygomys	Go	Go's GC	BSD-2-Clause	An embedded Lisp for Go. Inspired by Clojure, but more oriented towards imperative programming. Has an infix syntax layer that looks like a subset of Go.

See also

• cwal: Scripting Engine Without A Language.
• Game scripting languages benchmarked.
• Languages that compile to JavaScript.
• Languages that compile to Lua.
• miniKanren logic programming language implementations.
• sol — C++ bindings for Lua.

Contributing

Your contributions are welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.

License

Disclosure

The curator of this document maintains Picol and has contributed to Jim Tcl.