LispWorks
Shares rank 3 of 6 common Lisp implementations by recommenders
People recommend it as a polished Common Lisp IDE with a graphical interface and small GUI binaries. Critics find the paid licenses expensive and the free edition's heap limit restrictive.
People recommend it as a polished Common Lisp IDE with a graphical interface and small GUI binaries. Critics find the paid licenses expensive and the free edition's heap limit restrictive.
12 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 50%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1 recommender for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 6 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
Recommended as a top Common Lisp
“The right way to start is with LispWorks or Allegro Common Lisp”
Comment from 10 Mar 2026 in “Getting Started in Common Lisp” “LispWorks and Allegro Common Lisp should not be overlooked”
Comment from 24 Feb 2026 in “Steel Bank Common Lisp” “I think only surpassed by LispWorks”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “Advent of Code 2025” - Comment from 24 Feb 2026 in “Steel Bank Common Lisp”
Graphical experience like Lisp machines
“It has a graphical experience similar to the survivors from Lisp is Great days, like LispWorks and Allegro Common Lisp”
Comment from 7 Feb 2026 in “Hoot: Scheme on WebAssembly” “which contrary to SBCL provide a similar graphics experience as the Lisp machines of yore”
Comment from 23 Aug 2026 in “A Friendly Introduction to Racket” “truly interactive UI elements which themselves map to rich Lisp objects”
Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “Why Janet?” Strong IDE and developer experience
“a really excellent example of what polished developer experience should optimize for”
Comment from 12 Aug 2026 in “Delphi 13 Community Edition Is Now Available” “Compare them with things like LispWorks and Delphi, and the difference is stark”
Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “A curmudgeon tries a language server” “All it's missing is a text editor like LispWorks”
Comment from 2 Jun 2026 in “Why Janet?” - Comment from 10 Aug 2026 in “Because It's Not Fun Enough: why languages fail”
Small binaries for GUI apps
“The killers, generally, for an enterprise project are the smaller binaries and java interface.”
Comment from 25 Feb 2026 in “Steel Bank Common Lisp” “tree shaking and small binaries (±5MB a GUI app)”
Comment from 24 Feb 2026 in “Steel Bank Common Lisp”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Expensive hobby license price
“price for hobby user license at 750 USD is laughable”
Comment from 17 Jul 2026 in “A Road to Lisp: Which Lisp” “Maybe LispWorks, but that's expensive.”
Comment from 10 Mar 2026 in “Two Years of Emacs Solo: 35 Modules, Zero External Packages, and a Full Refactor” Free edition limited by heap
“I can't load my side projects in LispWorks' community edition, so… (because of the heap limit)”
Comment from 24 Feb 2026 in “Steel Bank Common Lisp” “more than what the personal version of lispworks offers”
Comment from 16 Aug 2026 in “Clamiga: Common Lisp for the Amiga”
Other common Lisp implementations people recommend
The four most recommended other common Lisp implementations, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SBCL Common Lisp | 49 | 9 | 84% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Steel Bank Common Lisp (SBCL) | 26 | 7 | 79% | 8 | — | Approved |
| LispWorksThis page | 6 | 6 | 50% | 6 | — | — |
| Dotcl | 6 | 0 | 100% | 2 | — | — |
| ECL (Embeddable Common Lisp) | 5 | 0 | 100% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
21 of the 24 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Compare them with things like LispWorks and Delphi, and the difference is stark”
“which contrary to SBCL provide a similar graphics experience as the Lisp machines of yore”
“more than what the personal version of lispworks offers”
“a really excellent example of what polished developer experience should optimize for”
“lacks the IDE tooling from LispWorks and Allegro”
“price for hobby user license at 750 USD is laughable”
“Too much focus on making tree-representations of programs the centerpoint, which isn't how my internal grammar works.”
“Yes, Allegro Common Lisp, and Lisp Works support this just fine.”
“truly interactive UI elements which themselves map to rich Lisp objects”
“All it's missing is a text editor like LispWorks”
“Maybe LispWorks, but that's expensive.”
“The right way to start is with LispWorks or Allegro Common Lisp”
“I used both, AllegroCL commercially in production, and was disappointed in both.”
“The killers, generally, for an enterprise project are the smaller binaries and java interface.”
“tree shaking and small binaries (±5MB a GUI app)”
“I think LispWorks is fine”
“I can't load my side projects in LispWorks' community edition, so… (because of the heap limit)”
“I've found their IDE offerings to be very limited.”
“LispWorks and Allegro Common Lisp should not be overlooked”
“It has a graphical experience similar to the survivors from Lisp is Great days, like LispWorks and Allegro Common Lisp”
“I think only surpassed by LispWorks”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.