Decision Workspace
lua-sys vs tlua vs mlua
Side-by-side comparison of Rust crates
30
lua-sys
growingv0.2.0
Raw Lua 5.3 bindings for Rust, used by Pollua
69
tlua
stablev8.0.0
Zero-cost high-level wrapper for Tarantool-LuaJIT
68
mlua
growingv0.11.6
High level bindings to Lua 5.5/5.4/5.3/5.2/5.1 (including LuaJIT) and Luau with async/await features and support of writing native Lua modules in Rust.
Core Metrics
| lua-sys | tlua | mlua | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Health Score | 30 | 69 | 68 |
| Total Downloads | 3.9K | 121.4K | 4.3M |
| 30d Downloads | 2 | 5.4K | 255.4K |
| Dependents | 0 | 26 | 3.1K |
| Releases | 2 | 18 | 82 |
| Last Updated | 2340d ago | 8d ago | 59d ago |
| Age | 9y 1m | 4y 3m | 6y 4m |
Health Breakdown
lua-sys
Maintenance
3
Quality
9
Community
5
Popularity
4
Documentation
9
tlua
Maintenance
20
Quality
18
Community
10
Popularity
6
Documentation
15
mlua
Maintenance
17
Quality
13
Community
15
Popularity
8
Documentation
15
Technical Details
| lua-sys | tlua | mlua | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Version | 0.2.0 | 8.0.0 | 0.11.6 |
| Stable (≥1.0) | ✗ No | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
| License | MIT OR Apache-2.0 | MIT | MIT |
| Dependencies | 8 | 7 | 28 |
| Crate Size | 204KB | 64KB | 262KB |
| Features | 6 | 2 | 20 |
| Yanked % | 100.0% | 5.6% | 1.2% |
| Edition | 2018 | 2021 | 2021 |
| MSRV | — | 1.89 | 1.85.0 |
| Owners | 1 | 3 | 1 |
Links
Quick Verdict
- •tlua leads with a health score of 69/100, but none of the options score above 80.
- •mlua has the most downloads (4.3M), suggesting wider adoption.
- •mlua is depended on by 3.1K crates — strongest ecosystem trust.
- •⚠ lua-sys has not been updated in over a year.
- •lua-sys, mlua are pre-1.0 — API may change.