Fennel
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 62 of 163 programming languages by recommenders
Lisp-style language that compiles to Lua, liked for its clean syntax and easy Lua interop; the most common caveat is hard-to-debug transpiled code.
Lisp-style language that compiles to Lua, liked for its clean syntax and easy Lua interop; the most common caveat is hard-to-debug transpiled code.
21 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 20
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 95%
Recommended in 11 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 20 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 20 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 11 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
Fun and enjoyable to write
“there's also the wonderful Fennel possibility which distracts me when I'm bikeshedding”
Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “Why S7 Scheme?” “Like eg I have to deal with a lot of lua so I get my lisp rocks off with fennel.”
Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “Rhombus 1.1 is now available” “Fennel is really cool! And you can write games in it”
Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “LÖVE: 2D Game Framework for Lua” - Comment from 24 Dec 2025 in “Learn Lisp/Fennel Programming Against Neovim”
- Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “Why S7 Scheme?”
Nicer syntax for Lua code
“provides a nice syntax for Lua, and mostly solves incompatibilities between different Lua(JIT) versions”
Comment from 25 Jun 2026 in “LuaJIT 3.0 proposed syntax extensions” “We later moved to Fennel(-lang) based on Lua as it was a slightly better fit for our team”
Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “Why S7 Scheme?” “If you dislike Lua (I'm not a fan) I recommend Fennel”
Comment from 29 Mar 2026 in “Neovim 0.12.0” - Comment from 28 Jul 2026 in “Steel Bank Common Lisp version 2.6.7”
- Comment from 14 Mar 2026 in “Hammerspoon”
Same language across many configs
“Fennel is indispensable for any Lua - mpv, Hammerspoon, AwesomeWM and Neovim configs”
Comment from 2 Jun 2026 in “Why Janet?” “from all practical points it felt like almost using the same language everywhere”
Comment from 10 Jul 2026 in “A Road to Lisp: Why Lisp” “Just use Fennel. That's what my Hyprland config is written in.”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Hyprland 0.55 announced the switch to Lua for its config files” - Comment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: I forced Claude to play Tetris in Emacs”
Lisp macros and REPL
“slash down dozen lines of Lua boilerplate compressing it into a three-liner Fennel macro”
Comment from 17 Jul 2026 in “A Road to Lisp: Which Lisp” “if you want full Lisp syntax you can drop in Fennel.”
Comment from 23 Dec 2025 in “Lua 5.5” “which means I can have Lispy REPL”
Comment from 26 May 2026 in “Use Boring Languages with LLMs”
Other programming languages people recommend
The four most recommended other programming languages, 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.
See all 163 programming languages, rankedWhat people said
32 of the 35 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“which really improves QoL for larger projects”
“Like eg I have to deal with a lot of lua so I get my lisp rocks off with fennel.”
“some local llm's struggled with it and got stuck in reasoning loops trying to close the parenthesis”
“all are pretty young, yet already not some "useless toys"”
“Anything Lua-driven is now done with Fennel.”
“Just use Fennel. That's what my Hyprland config is written in.”
“slash down dozen lines of Lua boilerplate compressing it into a three-liner Fennel macro”
“from all practical points it felt like almost using the same language everywhere”
“major contributors using Funnel to use Lisp as a workaround for working with Lua”
“provides a nice syntax for Lua, and mostly solves incompatibilities between different Lua(JIT) versions”
“today you can get a pseudo-Lisp engine with Fennel. Even though it unlikely ever feel like Emacs.”
“Fennel is indispensable for any Lua - mpv, Hammerspoon, AwesomeWM and Neovim configs”
“When I found Fennel I immediately moved to it, even though it was "experimental".”
“having a Lisp-adjacent language like Fennel running atop it is a pretty damn compelling idea”
“My biggest gripe with it is that debugging is the typical transpilation bed of needles.”
“No standard library of its own so missing many nice things like the parser library from janet”
“which means I can have Lispy REPL”
“Never in my life have I been more grateful to my younger self for grokking the philosophy of Lisp.”
“then Fennel, Janet and Clojure-Dart”
“my Hammerspon config is in Fennel”
“Fennel is really cool! And you can write games in it”
“I've had no significant issues with Fennel and Chez Scheme”
“If you dislike Lua (I'm not a fan) I recommend Fennel”
“I already avoid Lua by writing in Fennel”
“Yes, Fennel is a great distraction”
“We later moved to Fennel(-lang) based on Lua as it was a slightly better fit for our team”
“there's also the wonderful Fennel possibility which distracts me when I'm bikeshedding”
“none of them felt quite right”
“once you get rolling it's very easy to manage”
“Fennel is such a cosy little language”
“if you want full Lisp syntax you can drop in Fennel.”
“fennel on the Lua platform”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.