Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

CMU Common Lisp VS Lem

Compare CMU Common Lisp VS Lem and see what are their differences

CMU Common Lisp logo CMU Common Lisp

CMUCL is a high-performance, free Common Lisp implementation.

Lem logo Lem

Cross-platform and highly extensible Commo Lisp editor/IDE.
  • CMU Common Lisp Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-04-15
  • Lem Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-11-01

CMU Common Lisp features and specs

  • High-Performance Compiler
    CMU Common Lisp features an efficient native code compiler that can produce highly optimized code for the supported platforms, enhancing performance for computationally-intensive applications.
  • Extensive Library Support
    Includes a wide variety of libraries, providing functionality ranging from numerical computing to system interfacing, which allows developers to implement diverse applications without relying heavily on external packages.
  • Strong Typing System
    CMUCL provides a strong type system with good error detection and optimization capabilities that can help catch errors at compile-time and improve runtime performance.
  • Garbage Collection
    It includes an efficient garbage collector that manages memory naturally, minimizing manual intervention and reducing memory leaks and fragmentation in applications.
  • Comprehensive Integrated Development Environment
    CMUCL comes with an integrated environment which includes a debugger, inspector, and an interface for efficient development and troubleshooting.

Possible disadvantages of CMU Common Lisp

  • Limited Platform Support
    The number of platforms explicitly supported by CMUCL is limited, which can be a constraint for developers who need to work across multiple or newer systems.
  • Steep Learning Curve
    Newcomers might find CMUCL challenging due to its complexity and the intricate features specific to Lisp, requiring a steep learning curve compared to more modern languages and environments.
  • Outdated Documentation
    Some users find the documentation to be outdated or not comprehensive enough, making it difficult to get started and fully leverage the system's capabilities.
  • Limited Community Support
    The user and contributor community for CMUCL is relatively small compared to other languages and projects, which may result in less frequent updates and fewer third-party resources.
  • Complex Setup Process
    Initial setup and configuration of CMUCL can be cumbersome, especially for users not familiar with Lisp environments or those who require specific custom configurations.

Lem features and specs

No features have been listed yet.

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to CMU Common Lisp and Lem)
Programming Language
100 100%
0% 0
IDE
43 43%
57% 57
Text Editors
47 47%
53% 53
OOP
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

Share your experience with using CMU Common Lisp and Lem. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Lem seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 21 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

CMU Common Lisp mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of CMU Common Lisp yet. Tracking of CMU Common Lisp recommendations started around Mar 2021.

Lem mentions (21)

  • I Chose Common Lisp
    >Looks like vim-slime is essential to how you work with CL slime has some issues and I am not convinced lisp and vim are a good pair. Lem is getting pretty good and improving by the day, find it much better to work with than vim when it comes to lisp and vim is my primary editor. https://github.com/lem-project/lem. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • EmacsConf 2024 Notes
    Wondering if the Lem project is “accepted” (or worth a test drive) by the Emacs community. I’m a long time Emacs user, occasionally leaving but always returning. Lately, Lem has my attention. https://github.com/lem-project/lem For those not familiar, Lem is very approximately an Emacs, natively written and extendable in Common Lisp, multiplatform, NCurses & SDL2, etc. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Neomacs: Structural Lisp IDE/browser/computing environment
    I know one guy who uses emacs and when I heard of lem (https://github.com/lem-project/lem) I told him. (Lem is also in CL) He was quite enthusiastic of it, but 2 or 3 things were missing at the time, the first of all you guessed it, it's org-mode, second was magit but he could use lem without it and finally it was a plugin manager (but we agreed it is a lot of... - Source: Hacker News / 6 months ago
  • Emacs-ng: A project to integrate Deno and WebRender into Emacs
    There's also Lem, which has a good vim mode and is scriptable in Common Lisp (since it's built in CL) :D https://github.com/lem-project/lem/ It has: LSP support, a treeview, project-related commands, a directory mode, a POC git mode… with ncurses and SDL2 UIs. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Setting up a fundraiser for multi-threaded Emacs, any thoughts on this?
    Indeed, at this point it's just better to contribute to Lem. Source: over 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing CMU Common Lisp and Lem, you can also consider the following products

Steel Bank Common Lisp - Steel Bank Common Lisp (SBCL) is a high performance Common Lisp compiler.

Kiwi Syslog Server - Kiwi Syslog Server prvides solution to centralize and simplify log message management across network devices and servers.

CLISP - CLISP is a portable ANSI Common Lisp implementation and development environment by Bruno Haible.

Doom Emacs - Emacs configuration similar to Spacemacs but faster and lighter.

Clozure Common Lisp - Clozure CL (often called CCL for short) is a free Common Lisp implementation with a long history.

Productivity Power Tools - Extension for Visual Studio - A set of extensions to Visual Studio 2012 Professional (and above) which improves developer productivity.