Awesome Scheme

September 7, 2025 · View on GitHub

Translations

Chez Scheme: R6RS, official installer also for Windows, considered one of the fastest scheme implementations.
Ikarus R6RS
MIT/GNU Scheme: R7RS

Gerbil: R7RS, compiles to C, based on Gambit, extends gambit with better macro and module systems.
Racket: R6RS, beginner friendly, full Windows support, optional typing, essentially a superset of scheme, tons of libraries, moving/moved to a Chez Scheme backend.

CHICKEN: R5RS and R7RS, beginner friendly, exceptional community, unique implementation of GC.
Cyclone: R7RS, experimental extension of Chicken-style GC with native thread support.
Gambit: R5RS, official installers also for macOS, iOS, Windows, considered quite fast.
Bigloo: R5RS, can also compile to Java-Virtual-Machine (JVM) classes, limited optional typing.

Chibi-Scheme: R7RS
Gauche: R7RS, compiles to standalone executable, official installers also for Windows, Docker.
GNU Guile: R6RS, getting JIT executable support soon, beginner friendly, officially supported by GNU, scripting language for many pieces of GNU software.
IronScheme: R6RS, based on Common-Language-Runtime (CLR).
Kawa: R7RS, based on JVM, compile to JVM classes, limited optional typing.
Skint: R7RS-small, easily portable (Un*x, MacOS, Windows), fast threaded-code VM
STklos: R7RS except that syntax-rules only has partial hygiene and lexical scope; ad-hoc portable VM, with CLOS-like object system.

BiwaScheme: R6RS, partial R7RS, compiler to intermediate represantion + VM
LIPS: R7RS, most of the spec is written in core Scheme, good interop with JavaScript

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs: classic computer science textbook from MIT
How to Design Programs: an easier-to-approach, more down-to-earth counterpart to SICP
The Little Schemer: teaches recursive thinking using Scheme (code)
The Seasoned Schemer: continuation of The Little Schemer (code)
The Reasoned Schemer: teaches logic programming using Scheme (code)
The Scheme Programming Language: language reference by the author of Chez Scheme
Essentials of Programming Languages: textbook on programming language implementation

Geiser: most comprehensive Emacs support for many Scheme implementations (MELPA)
Scheme-langserver: a new scheme language server focusing on digesting incomplete scheme source code and giving out useful language features. It's different from other REPL counterparts for it provides local identifier auto complete and many other functionalities.

GNUCash: personal finance app scriptable in Guile
SIAG: Scheme In A Grid: old Scheme-scriptable spreadsheet with built-in web server

Scribble: popular, somewhat lightweight Scheme-based markup language (Racket, R7RS)
Skribilo: TeX/LaTeX-like document processor with Scheme scripting
Skribe and Scheme Scribe: older Scheme-based document processors from INRIA
Pollen: a fancy typesetting system for writing entire books in Racket

Nanopass Framework: a DSL for factoring compilers into many small passes and IRs
Harlan: a Scheme-based programming language for GPU computing
packrat: a PEG parser generator with a Scheme DSL (Akku, Chicken, Racket)
r6rs-pffi - portable foreign-function interface for several implementations (R6RS; Home & Docs; Akku)