# TurboLua

5 Hacker News commenters recommended TurboLua and 0 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** An event-driven Lua runtime with built-in networking, HTTP, templates and encryption, recommended for network-centric apps and for filling a specific niche.

## Why people recommend it

- Built-in networking and I/O mechanisms (2 comments): "TurboLua is particularly great because it really integrates about all of the I/O mechanisms you could want in a network-centric application" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50061367)) "Event driven, fast, all the networking basics in place including http, mustache templates and encryption" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50060536))
- Fills a niche people were looking for (2 comments): "It's precisely the niche I was looking to have filled, so I'll build a prototype or two in it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50061211)) "My favourite other example is turboLua" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49462671))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [LuaJIT](https://hackerapproved.com/p/luajit.md): 51 recommend
- [Luvit](https://hackerapproved.com/p/luvit.md): 6 recommend

## Cite as

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