Calva
Ranked 5 of 5 vs code extensions by recommenders
People recommend Calva as a quick way to start with Clojure, giving a REPL inside VSCode with little setup. The quotes raise no caveats.
People recommend Calva as a quick way to start with Clojure, giving a REPL inside VSCode with little setup. The quotes raise no caveats.
5 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Easy to install and start
“it's as easy as installing Calva extention for VSCode - that's all one needs to mess around with Clojure”
Comment from 26 Nov 2025 in “Python is not a great language for data science” “These days you can just download the Calva VSCode extension and start playing with it.”
Comment from 30 May 2026 in “Use Boring Languages with LLMs” “It is as easy as installing Calva vscode extension for Clojure”
Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Why I Still Reach for Lisp (& Scheme) Instead of Haskell” - Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Emacs is my new window manager (2015)”
- Comment from 26 Apr 2026 in “Mine, an IDE for Coalton and Common Lisp”
Good for learning and tinkering
“it's as easy as installing Calva extention for VSCode - that's all one needs to mess around with Clojure”
Comment from 26 Nov 2025 in “Python is not a great language for data science” “These days you can just download the Calva VSCode extension and start playing with it.”
Comment from 30 May 2026 in “Use Boring Languages with LLMs” “When teaching Clojure, I direct everybody to either VSCode + Calva”
Comment from 17 Apr 2026 in “Official Clojure Documentary page with Video, Shownotes, and Links” - Comment from 19 Nov 2025 in “Experiment: Making TypeScript immutable-by-default”
REPL inside your editor
“the most excellent Calva extension which give me REPL-everywhere in my editing experience”
Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “We Lost Something: 1970s REPLs Were Better Than Modern Development Environments” “Calva, a fantastic REPL with excellent linter Kondo”
Comment from 31 Mar 2026 in “Clojure: The Documentary, official trailer [video]” Quickstart guide and Kondo linter
“VSCode's Calva extension has great "Quickstart guide"”
Comment from 26 Mar 2026 in “Data Manipulation in Clojure Compared to R and Python” “Calva, a fantastic REPL with excellent linter Kondo”
Comment from 31 Mar 2026 in “Clojure: The Documentary, official trailer [video]”
Other vs code extensions people recommend
The four most recommended other vs code extensions, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VS Code Remote SSH | 22 | 27 | 45% | 8 | — | — |
| Fresh File Explorer | 9 | 0 | 100% | 1 | — | — |
| vscode-neovim | 6 | 1 | 86% | 6 | — | — |
| GitLens | 6 | 2 | 75% | 5 | — | — |
| CalvaThis page | 5 | 0 | 100% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
All 10 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“These days you can just download the Calva VSCode extension and start playing with it.”
“It is as easy as installing Calva vscode extension for Clojure”
“It takes less than a minute”
“When teaching Clojure, I direct everybody to either VSCode + Calva”
“Calva, a fantastic REPL with excellent linter Kondo”
“VSCode's Calva extension has great "Quickstart guide"”
“the most excellent Calva extension which give me REPL-everywhere in my editing experience”
“install Calva for VSCode - that's all you need”
“it's as easy as installing Calva extention for VSCode - that's all one needs to mess around with Clojure”
“VSCode's Calva is great to mess around it.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.