chibi-scheme
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Description:
Small footprint Scheme for use as a C Extension Language
Type: Formula  |  Latest Version: 0.11@0  |  Tracked Since: Dec 17, 2025
Links: Homepage  |  formulae.brew.sh
Category: Developer tools
Tags: scheme interpreter embedded r7rs lisp c-extension
Install: brew install chibi-scheme
About:
Chibi-Scheme is a minimalist Scheme implementation designed for embedding in C applications. It provides a lightweight, full-featured R7RS-small compliant interpreter with a small memory footprint. Its primary value is enabling scripting capabilities in resource-constrained environments or C-based projects.
Key Features:
  • R7RS-small standard compliance
  • Extremely small memory footprint (~100KB)
  • Seamless C API for embedding
  • Support for native threads
  • Extensible via C modules
Use Cases:
  • Embedding scripting into C/C++ applications
  • Configuration and automation in embedded systems
  • Teaching programming language implementation
  • Plugin systems for performance-critical software
Alternatives:
  • Guile – Larger and more feature-rich, but significantly heavier footprint
  • TinyScheme – Similar minimalist goals, but Chibi offers better standards compliance
  • Lua – More popular for embedding, but uses different programming paradigm
License: BSD-3-Clause
Bottles available for: arm64_tahoe, arm64_sequoia, arm64_sonoma, arm64_ventura, arm64_monterey, sonoma, ventura, monterey, arm64_linux, x86_64_linux
Version History
Detected Version Rev Change Commit
Sep 12, 2025 8:16pm 0.11 0 VERSION_BUMP 2ecfc59e
Jan 8, 2025 4:56pm 0.11 0 VERSION_BUMP d5bd215a
Nov 3, 2024 4:16pm 0 VERSION_BUMP a6cbb8e6