Edit ``Common Lisp implementation''

Free _(Common Lisp implementation)s and their *_(features)*.

/("Common Lisp implementation" :attribute :topic :match :exact)

<h2>Partial comparison table</h2>

All the implementations below provide an FFI and sockets interface. Callbacks mean in this context that the FFI is capable of passing lisp-functions as callbacks to foreign functions.
The startup file is loaded when the Lisp starts (not sure whether this is the best place, but a question came up recently on comp.lang.lisp)
<table border="1">
<tr>
 <th>Implementation</th>
 <th>Supported Platforms</th>
 <th>ANSI<br>Compliance</th>
 <th>Compiler</th>
 <th>Features</th>
 <th>Startup file</th>
</tr>
<tr>
 <td>_(CLISP)</td>
 <td>Windows, Mac, Most *nixes</td>
 <td>Good</td>
 <td>Bytecode</td>
 <td>Small image size, very efficient bignums, Callbacks,
  <a href="http://clisp.cons.org/impnotes/modules.html">modules</a></td>
 <td>~/.clisprc.lisp</td>
</tr>
<tr>
 <td>_(CMUCL)</td>
 <td>Most *nixes</td>
 <td>Good</td>
 <td>Bytecode, Native & Block Compilation</td>
 <td>High quality native compiler, Callbacks</td>
 <td>~/.cmucl-init.lisp</td>
</tr>
<tr>
 <td>_(ECL)</td>
 <td>Microsoft Windows, most Un*x variants, Mac OSX</td>
 <td>?</td>
 <td>Bytecode, native via C</td>
 <td>Executable delivery.  Integrates well with C programs (i.e. Embeddable).</td>
 <td>~/.eclrc</td>
</tr>
<tr>
 <td>_(GCL)</td>
 <td>Windows, Most *nixes</td>
 <td>?</td>
 <td>Native via C</td>
 <td>?</td>
 <td>~/.gclrc.lisp</td>
</tr>
<tr>
 <td>_(OpenMCL)</td>
 <td>Mac, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, Windows (in alpha)</td>
 <td>Good</td>
 <td>Native</td>
 <td>Small image size, fast compiler, callbacks, executable delivery, native threads on all platforms, precise gc</td>
 <td>~/ccl-init.lisp</td>
</tr>
<tr>
 <td>_(SBCL)</td>
 <td>Most *nixes, MacOS X (Darwin), Windows (Experimental)</td>
 <td>Good</td>
 <td>Native</td>
 <td>High quality native compiler; callbacks; executable delivery;
     native threads on x64 and x86-64 for Linux, Solaris 10, and OS X
     (experimental)</td>
 <td>~/.sbclrc</td>
</tr>
<tr>
 <td><a href="http://www.cliki.net/Armed%20Bear%20Lisp">ABCL</a></td>
 <td>Most *nixes, MacOS X (Darwin), Windows</td>
 <td>Good, except for some CLOS parts</td>
 <td>JVM bytecode</td>
 <td>FFI to Java, multithreading, platform independence</td>
 <td>~/.abclrc</td>
</tr>
<tr>
  <td>_(emacs-cl)</td>
  <td>emacs</td>
  <td>Lacks among other things, CLOS and pretty printing.</td>
  <td>?</td>
  <td>FFI with underlying emacs</td>
  <td>?</td>
</table>

For non-free implementations, see [new] <a href="http://wiki.alu.org/Implementation">ALU wiki, Implementation</a>, or [old] <a href="http://www.alu.org/table/systems.htm#vendor"
>http://www.alu.org/table/systems.htm#vendor</a>. <i>The old link is inacessible  on 2007-02-20.</i>

<a href="http://common-lisp.net/~dlw/LispSurvey.html">Survey of Common Lisp implementations being maintained as of November, 2007.</a>

If performance is an important criterion for you, you might be interested in the _(Performance Benchmarks) page.

Please supply your name and a summary of changes for the Recent Changes page. If you are making a minor alteration to a page you recently edited, you can avoid making another Recent Changes entry by leaving the Summary box blank
Summary of changes:
Captcha (enter the word "lisp" here):
Your name:
Check this box to fill in your name automatically next time (uses a cookie)

Please note: other readers will see your changes immediately, but external search engines will continue to see the old version for another 24 hours. Spamming this site to improve your PageRank is therefore a particularly fruitless activity.

CLiki pages can be edited by anyone at any time. Imagine a fearsomely comprehensive disclaimer of liability. Now fear, comprehensively