ZeroBrane Studio supports debugging of Lua 5.3 applications in several ways:

  1. (v0.90+) A Lua 5.3 interpreter is included in ZeroBrane Studio. You can select it by going to Project | Lua Interpreter | Lua 5.3.
  2. A Lua 5.3 application can be debugged as any other application using remote debugging.

If you are using your own Lua 5.3 interpreter and have it statically compiled on Windows, you may run into issues with debugging as the luasocket library that is included with ZeroBrane Studio is compiled against lua53.dll. You have two options to get it working:

  1. statically compile luasocket into your application, or
  2. put lua53.dll proxy DLL into the folder with your executable to make all calls to Lua 5.3 interpreter be forwarded to your statically compiled interpreter (follow the instructions for mkforwardlib-gcc-52.lua on this page, but change the name to match lua53).

Download v2.01 (Sep 26 2023)

“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)