xmake-io/xmake

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

12165 stars · 948 forks observed · 2026-08-28

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

Xmake is a cross-platform build utility based on Lua that builds C/C++ (and other language) projects directly or generates project files for IDEs like CMake/Meson. It includes a built-in package manager for integrating C/C++ dependencies and supports caching, parallel builds, and distributed compilation.

Use cases

• build a cross-platform c++ project without writing cmake
• manage c++ library dependencies like conan or vcpkg
• generate visual studio or xcode project files from a build script
• replace makefiles with a simpler lua-based build script
• set up distributed or remote compilation for a large codebase
• build mixed-language projects including cuda and objective-c

When to choose

• you want a modern, lightweight alternative to CMake or Make for C/C++
• you need integrated dependency management in your build tool
• you want fast builds with caching and parallel compilation
• you prefer a simple, readable Lua-based build configuration

When to avoid

• your team and toolchain are already deeply invested in CMake or Bazel
• you need a build system with a large ecosystem of third-party integrations
• your project only targets a single platform with simple build needs

Facets

cli-tool · maturity stable

build-tool package-manager cli developer-tools developer-tools cross-platform windows cross-platform cli lua c-plus-plus cmake-alternative dependency-management ide-project-generation command-line linux macos

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markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="xmake-io/xmake")