# Luau

12 Hacker News commenters recommended Luau and 0 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 9 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** A Lua-based scripting language from Roblox, praised as small, consistent and well suited to scripting, with optional type annotations. No critical complaints were recorded.

## Why people recommend it

- Performant, well-suited scripting language (2 comments): "probably with more common and performant scripting languages (Rust + Luau for example)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48746544)) "Luau might seem an odd choice, but it's genuinely well-suited here" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46944112))
- Small, consistent Lua-based language (2 comments): "Lua and Luau are much smaller and more consistent languages." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47906400)) "as is Lua (specifically Luau)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47335382))
- Easy nesting and consistent syntax (2 comments): "Lua and Luau are much smaller and more consistent languages." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47906400)) "makes it a ton easier to nest (especially with elseif)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48667775))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Lua](https://hackerapproved.com/p/lua.md): 186 recommend
- [awk](https://hackerapproved.com/p/awk.md): 67 recommend
- [AutoHotkey](https://hackerapproved.com/p/autohotkey.md): 44 recommend
- [GDScript](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gdscript.md): 22 recommend
- [AppleScript](https://hackerapproved.com/p/applescript.md): 19 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Luau", https://hackerapproved.com/p/luau/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).