c3lang/c3c

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

5778 stars · 396 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded

c3c is the official compiler for the C3 programming language, an evolution of C with modern features like modules, generics, error handling, and built-in slices while keeping full C ABI compatibility. It is built on an LLVM backend and provides project management, build, and run commands via a single command-line tool.

Use cases

• compile a modern C-like systems language to native binaries
• incrementally convert a C project to a safer language with C ABI compatibility
• write games or native applications with C-level performance
• learn an ergonomic alternative to C with optionals and defer
• mix C3 code into an existing C/C++ codebase
• scaffold and build multi-module projects with c3c init and c3c run

When to choose

• you want C-like performance and syntax with modern ergonomics like modules, generics, and error handling
• you need seamless interoperability with existing C libraries and ABI compatibility
• you want fast compilation times and an integrated build system without external tooling
• you are a C programmer looking for a gentle evolution rather than a paradigm shift

When to avoid

• you need memory safety guarantees like Rust's borrow checker or RAII
• you require object-oriented programming with classes and exceptions
• you need a mature, battle-tested language with a large ecosystem and long-term stability guarantees
• your team depends on tooling or libraries that only exist for mainstream languages

Facets

cli-tool · maturity active

compiler programming-language build-tool cli programming-languages compilers developer-tools windows bsd cli cross-platform c3-language llvm-backend c-abi-compatibility systems-programming native-code systems linux macos

Member repositories

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="c3lang/c3c")