# Teal programming language

5 Hacker News commenters recommended Teal programming language and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 2 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend Teal as a way to add static types to Lua code. Critics mention trouble with cdefs and a separate build step.

## Why people recommend it

- Adds static types to Lua (3 comments): "it does at least give a pretty good way of statically enforcing what the actual types it should be using are" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50139788)) "Teal simply gives you the option to add static types to your Lua code" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50140181)) "a compile-to-lua language that lets you add types" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47919270))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Rust](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rust.md): 2039 recommend
- [Go](https://hackerapproved.com/p/go-programming-language.md): 1254 recommend
- [Python](https://hackerapproved.com/p/python.md): 1067 recommend
- [Zig](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zig.md): 743 recommend
- [TypeScript](https://hackerapproved.com/p/typescript.md): 574 recommend

## Cite as

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