Lua Integrated Development Environments

wiki

• Visual Studio Code
  • [lua-booster] (5.1/5.2/5.3/5.4) - a Lua plugin for vscode. Intellisense, autocomplete, linting, formatting.
• Eclipse
  • [Lua Development Tools] (5.0/5.1/5.2) - (Fails installation) Lua IDE for the Eclipse Platform, includes a visual debugger. Official Eclipse project.
  • [LuaEclipse] (5.0/5.1) - (DEFUNCT) Lua IDE for the Eclipse Platform. Integrates with LuaProfiler.
  • [akdebugger] Debugger and editor for Lua. Plugin for Eclipse.
• Emacs
  • [Lua-mode] (4.0/5.0/5.1) - syntax highlighting, auto-indent, interactive lua shell, paren and brace matching, auto-move to function or block begin/end, online documentation look-ups, postprocess output buffer (jump to error lines using traceback).
  • [lua2-mode] (5.1) - highlights any global variable references.
• Howl
  • [howl] - An emerging editor(2017) implemented in lua and moonscript. supports split views, custom lua/moonscript extensions, luacheck, plug-able syntax highlight and autocomplete
• IntelliJ IDEA
  • [IDLua] (5.1) - a Lua plugin for IDEA. Comes with an embedded Lua compiler written in Java. [1] (no longer maintained - original maintainer deceased, buggy)
  • [IDLua-Fork] (5.1) - Fork of IDLua (above), but only one update so far.
  • [EmmyLua] (5.4) - Regularly updated, supports latest IntelliJ IDEs.
• Visual Studio
  • [BabeLua] (5.1) - Visual Studio 2012/2013 extension. Auto completion, Syntax highlighting, Syntax error check, Formatting code, Lightweight project management, Quick search, Preview file outline and jump, List token references quickly, Object-oriented model support, Visual Studio project template, Debugger (Watch, Globals, Locals, Call Stack, Lua Stack, etc)
  • [vslua] (5.1) - Lua language service for Visual Studio 2008/2010.
  • [Lua Language Service] (5.1) - Lua syntax highlighting, code outlining, custom code completion (via editable XML files) into Visual Studio 2010/2013/2015 (open sourced).
  • See also CompilingLuaScriptsInVisualStudio.
• Standalone (IDEs)
  • [LuaRT Studio] (5.4) - Open source Windows IDE and debugger to develop Lua desktop/console applications, based on the LuaRT interpreter. LuaRT Studio can also be used to develop standard Lua applications with the latest Lua 5.4.4 VM seamlessly. Based on ZeroBrane? Studio, updated with a modern look, better symbols parsing and navigation, Lua 5.4 console and many other changes - Win32
  • [Decoda] (5.0/5.1) - An open source IDE and debugger for Lua that allows debugging of scripts in your own application, without any code changes - Win32.
  • [Glider] (5.1/5.2) - A commercial IDE featuring one click debugging, profiling, class aware code completion, declaration/occurrences finder, semantic highlighting and more. Plugins are available for integration with Corona, Gideros, Love2D, Cocos-2dx, and MOAI.
  • [ZeroBrane Studio] (5.1/5.2/5.3/LuaJIT) - A lightweight Lua IDE with code completion, syntax highlighting, remote debugger, code analyzer, live coding, and integration with several Lua engines (Löve 2D, Moai, and others) - Win32, Mac OSX, Linux.
    • [ZeroBrane Studio for Vera] - a package based on [ZeroBrane Studio] to provide development and debugging support for [Vera/MiCasaVerde] home automation devices.
  • [LuaEdit 2010] (5.1) - Complete professional looking Lua IDE - Windows 98/2000/XP/W7 (Very buggy)
  • [wxLua] (5.1) - a blend of Lua and wxWidgets. Provides its own IDE (written in wxLua) with a GUI debugger, a binding generator and wxWidgets bindings usable as a module. See also GraphicalUserInterfaceToolkits.
  • [Estrela editor] (5.1) - built upon wxLua's editor, features project view and rudimentary autocomplete and tooltip support based on api files.
  • [Gideros Studio] (5.1) - A cross-platform Lua IDE used to create mobile applications for Android and iOS easily
  • [Game Kitchen (formerly Löve Studio)] (5.1) An IDE for löve2d which features a debugger, an optional type system, and type-driven auto completion. - Windows vista or newer
  • [Comet] (1.2) - Lua development environment for numerical computing. Available for Android, Linux and Windows.
• Lua-oriented scriptable editors (see also LuaEditorSupport)
  • [CodeMAX] (5.1) - simple and fast open source text editor with the possibility to add custom features using Lua. Supports syntax highlighting, code folding, completion proposal, hints for function parameters, and more. It is possible to build a complete IDE for different programming languages. (No debugging)
  • [SciTE] (5.2) - an extensible text editor. See also SciteScripts.
  • [Textadept] (5.1) - an extensible open source cross-platform text editor. Consists of minimalistic C++ barebone fleshed with Lua scripts. Nearly everything is controlled by Lua, making the extensibility almost limitless. Features project manager, dynamic lexers, multibuffer, split views. (No debugging "from the box")
  • [Lua file type plug-in for the Vim text editor] (5.1) - Automatic syntax checking, code completion (supports standard library identifiers, follows dofile/require calls and supports used defined modules by scanning the $LUA_PATH and loading all defined modules), looking up documentation with one key press, keyboard shortcuts for quick navigation, checking for (undefined) globals, etc.
  • [Zeus IDE] (5.3) - IDE with Lua syntax highlighting, code folding, project management, debugging, integrated version control. The IDE is fully scriptable using Lua. (shareware)
• IDEs/Editors (Not updated for more than one year)
  • [B:Lua] - Open source project to create a full featured standalone Lua IDE. (development is on ice since April 2005)
  • [DForD LuaCoding] (5.1) - A full graphical Lua IDE. Features syntax highlighting, symbol browsing/searching, auto-completion, code snippet, debugging, building and more. Supported by a fully Lua script written plugin framework. (shareware) (Debugging is dead)
  • [Lua Studio] (5.1) - Simple, open source Lua IDE: editor + complete debugger. (Dead download Link to Kepler Project)
  • [QDE] (5.?) - Quotix Development Environment for Lua. It supports project management, autocomplete functionality, a multi-document interface, debugging and much more. (shareware, MS Windows only) (No debugging "from the box")
  • [Vortex Lua IDE] (5.0) - Another free Lua IDE, but in Brazilian Portuguese! (Outra IDE para Lua gratuita, mas em Portugues!) (link broken)
  • [VisualWx] (5.?) - IDE for Lua & wxLua. (freeware)
  • [LuaLite] (5.0) - syntax highlighting and auto-completion plug-in for Visual Studio .NET 2003.
  • [VSLua] (5.1) - A commercial solution to Lua language including an editor and debugger integrated within Visual Studio .NET (2002, 2003, 2005).
  • [VS Lua Language Pack] (5.1) - Open Source integration of Lua files into Visual Studio 2005.
  • [Lua Eclipse IDE] (5.1) - a set of Eclipse plug-ins that provide an editor and debugger for developing Lua scripts.
  • [LunarEclipse] (5.0/5.1) - Lua IDE for the Eclipse Platform. Implements a proper Eclipse perspective.
  • [LuaPatternView] (5.0) - an Eclipse plugin for testing [Lua patterns]. Supplied with the LuaJava Plugin for Eclipse, as well as (MIT-licensed) source code (binaries are available for MacOSX only for now).

See also

• LuaEditorSupport