ZeroBrane Studio is a lightweight Lua IDE with code completion, syntax highlighting, live coding, code analyzer, and debugging support for Lua 5.1, Lua 5.2, Lua 5.3, Lua 5.4, LuaJIT, and other Lua engines.

It is feature-rich and extensible for experienced developers, yet simple and instantly usable for beginners. Unlike Eclipse and IntelliJ, it has a small footprint and is fully customizable with Lua. Unlike TextMate and Sublime Text, it includes a remote debugger and a full IDE feature set. Unlike Decoda, it runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux and supports various Lua versions with on-device debugging.

ZeroBrane Studio also provides several unique features: live coding for immediate feedback, Markdown formatting in comments for providing instructions with minimal context switching, and integrated interactive materials for those learning Lua or getting familiar with programming.

The installation package includes some of the most popular Lua libraries (luasocket, luafilesystem, luasec, and lpeg) compiled for Lua 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, and 5.4 on all supported platforms.

For those interested in game and mobile development, the IDE supports debugging for LÖVE, Corona, Moai, Gideros, Marmalade Quick, Cocos2d-x, and other engines. It also supports general Lua debugging for Redbean, OpenResty/Nginx, Redis, Torch7, Wireshark, GSL-shell, Adobe Lightroom, Lapis, Moonscript, home automation, and more.

Feature highlights

  • Small, portable, open-source, and cross-platform (Windows, macOS, and Linux);
  • Auto-completion for functions, keywords, and custom APIs;
  • Syntax highlighting and folding for 110+ languages and file formats;
  • Project view with auto-refresh and ability to hide files and directories from the list;
  • Interactive console to test Lua code snippets with local and remote execution;
  • Integrated debugger with support for local and remote debugging, including cross-platform and on-device debugging;
  • Live coding with Lua, LÖVE, Gideros, Moai, Corona, GSL-Shell and other Lua engines;
  • Multi-language support with translations to French, Spanish, Russian, German, Chinese, Esperanto, Italian, Bulgarian, and Brazilian Portuguese languages and documentation to add your own;
  • 50+ extension packages in the package repository;
  • Fuzzy search for files, symbols, and library functions, function outline, and more.

what a breath of fresh air. (doctorbling)

IMHO, ZBS is the fastest, most-flexible, best-thought-out IDE AND Debugger I've used since I began coding professionally in 1980. (Michael Berlyn)

Love ZeroBrane Studio. Lightweight. Works. Powerful. (Ross Berteig)

Love the debugger, saving my life. (Troy Sandal)

Thanks again for your awesome IDE. I've moved over to it, forsaking my previous investment in Decoda! (Stephen Nichols)

my kids love ZeroBrane. (Phil Hagelberg)

ZBS is beautiful experience. I am using it usually 10 hrs every day w/o problems. (Srdjan Markovic)

...heartily recommend it. (stun)

I love ZBS. I use it for all of the work I’ve started doing in Lua...! This IDE is fantastic! (Eddie Dover)

ZeroBrane Studio has got a working debugger, full IDE feature set, small footprint, and is completely customizable in lua. You have no idea how excited I was to find this little gem! (Jonathan Shieh)

It's a joy to use;... totally rock solid. (Jeff Smith)

Complaining about Zerobrane is like complaining that a beautiful spring day is a couple degrees too warm. (Jim Burnes)