# probablycorey/wax

Wax is now being maintained by alibaba

Repository: https://github.com/probablycorey/wax
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/wax
Homepage: https://github.com/alibaba/wax
Language: C
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2017-03-30T07:41:40+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 32/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 6275, "days_push": 3443, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1971, forks 627 (observed 2026-08-28T04:06:00.840679+00:00)

## What it is
Wax is a framework that bridges Lua and Objective-C via the Objective-C runtime, letting developers write native iPhone apps in Lua. The original repository is unmaintained and development has moved to Alibaba's fork, which added 64-bit support, thread-safety fixes, and Lua debugging.

## Use cases
- write native iOS apps in Lua
- bridge Lua and Objective-C code
- hot-patch iOS apps with Lua scripts
- call Objective-C APIs from Lua scripts
- prototype iPhone features without recompiling

## When to choose
- you maintain a legacy iOS app already using Wax
- you need a mature Lua-to-Objective-C bridge for an older 32-bit or patched 64-bit codebase
- you want to script native iOS behavior dynamically in Lua

## When to avoid
- you are starting a new iOS project - Swift or modern alternatives are better supported
- you need App Store-safe hot patching, which Apple now restricts
- you require active maintenance or modern iOS SDK support

## Facets
- artifact type: framework
- maturity: abandoned
- function: mobile-framework, interpreter
- domain: mobile-development, programming-languages
- platform: lua, cpp
- tags: lua, objective-c-bridge, iphone, hot-patching, ios

## Member repositories
- probablycorey/wax (main) score 32

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:00.840679+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T03:05:05.791341+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/probablycorey/wax (fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:00.840679+00:00, sha 2dd2ebc95825)
  - homepage: https://github.com/alibaba/wax (fetched 2026-08-29T10:44:31.716493+00:00, sha 371208109ae6)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.