SLIME
Hacker ApprovedRanked 5 of 24 Emacs packages by recommenders
Common Lisp development environment for Emacs, valued for its REPL, debugger and macro expansion that make Lisp feel frictionless. Critics say it is tied to Emacs and lacks polish.
Common Lisp development environment for Emacs, valued for its REPL, debugger and macro expansion that make Lisp feel frictionless. Critics say it is tied to Emacs and lacks polish.
21 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 19
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 90%
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
- 19 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 9.5 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
Preferred environment for Common Lisp
“I prefer writing Lisp with Emacs+SLIME over anything else.”
Comment from 12 Feb 2026 in “I Wrote a Scheme in 2025” “I love Common Lisp and SLIME”
Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Why I Still Reach for Lisp (& Scheme) Instead of Haskell” “Paredit and SLIME are addictive.”
Comment from 25 Feb 2026 in “Racket v9.1” - Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “We Lost Something: 1970s REPLs Were Better Than Modern Development Environments”
- Comment from 17 Nov 2025 in “IDEmacs: A Visual Studio Code clone for Emacs”
Reduces friction in Lisp development
“Using something like SLIME also takes a lot of the pains that people have with Lisp away”
Comment from 26 Apr 2026 in “Mine, an IDE for Coalton and Common Lisp” “the Emacs/Slime/CL development environment as being a more frictionless approach”
Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “A curmudgeon tries a language server” “many non-obvious design choices in the Common Lisp type system and CLOS make SLIME "just work" in almost every case.”
Comment from 2 Jan 2026 in “Extensibility: The "100% Lisp" Fallacy” - Comment from 2 Jan 2026 in “Extensibility: The "100% Lisp" Fallacy”
Debugging and macrostep expansion
“SLIME and SLY have macrostep functionality that lets you expand macros in place, which has helped me immensely”
Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “A curmudgeon tries a language server” “With SLIME (this is a standard and very very slimmed out development aid) you add a debugger hook”
Comment from 6 Oct 2026 in “Why Common Lisp is now the best programming language” “once you get used to the debugging it's a very nice experience with slime”
Comment from 13 Aug 2026 in “Why vibe code in Common Lisp?” Better REPL than alternative tools
“I have heard as a REPL experience it doesn't compare to CL with SLIME”
Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “We Lost Something: 1970s REPLs Were Better Than Modern Development Environments” “LSP is actually much less capable than something like SLIME”
Comment from 17 Nov 2025 in “IDEmacs: A Visual Studio Code clone for Emacs” “the Emacs/Slime/CL development environment as being a more frictionless approach”
Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “A curmudgeon tries a language server”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Tied to Emacs, lacks polish
“It needs to escape Emacs and SLIME to something that feels complete and polished.”
Comment from 12 Feb 2026 in “I Wrote a Scheme in 2025” “we are not doomed to stay with Emacs&SLIME”
Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “I Wrote a Scheme in 2025”
Other Emacs packages people recommend
The four most recommended other Emacs packages, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Evil mode for Emacs | 39 | 7 | 85% | 11 | — | Approved |
| agent-shell | 25 | 6 | 81% | 11 | — | Approved |
| TRAMP for Emacs | 25 | 10 | 71% | 8 | — | Approved |
| gptel | 20 | 1 | 95% | 12 | — | Approved |
| SLIMEThis page | 19 | 2 | 90% | 11 | — | Approved |
What people said
22 of the 24 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“a pretty decent substitute for SLIME”
“With SLIME (this is a standard and very very slimmed out development aid) you add a debugger hook”
“the Emacs/Slime/CL development environment as being a more frictionless approach”
“SLIME and SLY have macrostep functionality that lets you expand macros in place, which has helped me immensely”
“once you get used to the debugging it's a very nice experience with slime”
“M-x package-install slime RET”
“Nowadays "text" in Emacs/SLIME is far from "raw text"”
“a dead list of raw text that I have to awkwardly interact with”
“looking up resources about SLIME should help since a lot is transferable”
“I love Common Lisp and SLIME”
“Using something like SLIME also takes a lot of the pains that people have with Lisp away”
“Even as someone who appreciates SLIME and emacs.”
“usually put one in the flow state in no time”
“Paredit and SLIME are addictive.”
“we are not doomed to stay with Emacs&SLIME”
“I prefer writing Lisp with Emacs+SLIME over anything else.”
“It needs to escape Emacs and SLIME to something that feels complete and polished.”
“their APRIL strategy for handling the long-tail problem is a real contribution”
“make SLIME 'just work' in almost every case”
“many non-obvious design choices in the Common Lisp type system and CLOS make SLIME "just work" in almost every case.”
“I have heard as a REPL experience it doesn't compare to CL with SLIME”
“LSP is actually much less capable than something like SLIME”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.