SBCL
Steel Bank Common Lisp, an open-source, high-performance native-code compiler and implementation of Common Lisp.
Recommended as arguably the best Common Lisp implementation for its mature compiler and garbage collection,123 and used for hobby projects, web backends and fast-starting command-line tools.456 The main caveat is slow, serialized shell commands when running with a large heap,7 and idiomatic, portable code is slower than implementation-specific tuned code.8
Why people recommend it
Mature compiler · 3
Commenters call it arguably the best Common Lisp implementation, with a mature compiler and garbage collection.
“Arguably the best is SBCL, which has a mature compiler and garbage collection.”
“Arguably the best is SBCL”
Show 1 more
“SBCL is a fantastic project and compiler”
Web backends · 2
Commenters say it is a good fit for backends, noting Hacker News itself runs on it and apps can serve pages via Hunchentoot.
“Hacker News itself runs fine on SBCL”
“I now generate ALL of my hobby projects in CL (SBCL on windows).”
Performance · 1
Code that relies on implementation-specific features can approach C performance in some benchmarks.
“Arguably the best is SBCL, which has a mature compiler and garbage collection.”
Fast CLI startup · 1
Saved images give command-line utilities millisecond startup times and fairly small compressed executables.
“I used to do this to build command line utilities in SBCL, with millisecond initialization times.”
Interactive debugging · 1
Once you get used to it, debugging with SLIME is described as a very nice experience.
“SBCL is a fantastic project and compiler”
Works on Windows · 1
One hobbyist uses it on Windows for all of their projects.
“I now generate ALL of my hobby projects in CL (SBCL on windows).”
Caveats and dissent
Shell command overhead · 1
With a large heap, such as 8GB, running even simple shell commands is noticeably slow because of how it forks.
“One annoying part of SBCL is that it does something up front with its memory”
Serialized subprocesses · 1
Shell commands are serialized, so running curl from multiple threads gives no speedup.
“One annoying part of SBCL is that it does something up front with its memory”
Portable code slower · 1
Idiomatic, portable Lisp is slower in practice than code tuned with implementation-specific features.
“Arguably the best is SBCL, which has a mature compiler and garbage collection.”
Learning curve · 1
Its debugging workflow takes some getting used to.
“SBCL is a fantastic project and compiler”
Who recommends it in their own words
Threads where it came up
- Why vibe code in Common Lisp? 3 mentions
- Because It's Not Fun Enough: why languages fail 2 mentions
- Steel Bank Common Lisp version 2.6.7 2 mentions
- Chicken Scheme 6.0 Released 1 mention
- A Road to Lisp: Why Lisp 1 mention
Data: sbcl.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 9
“I now generate ALL of my hobby projects in CL (SBCL on windows).”
“One annoying part of SBCL is that it does something up front with its memory”
“SBCL is a fantastic project and compiler”
“go to CL and then use something like SBCL”
“Arguably the best is SBCL”
“Arguably the best is SBCL, which has a mature compiler and garbage collection.”
“Hacker News itself runs fine on SBCL”
“I used to do this to build command line utilities in SBCL, with millisecond initialization times.”
“I specify in, for examp,e, my Common Lisp skills file to run ‘sbcl -load …””