Install luajit with Homebrew

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository

Commands and aliases

• luajit
• luajit-2.1.1785577137

Project history

LuaJIT is authored by Mike Pall and has been in continuous development since 2005. The official overview describes it as a JIT compiler for Lua that can be embedded or used as a standalone language runtime.

LuaJIT 2.0 was a major rewrite of the VM, combining an assembler-written interpreter with a trace compiler and SSA-based optimizations. The official extensions documentation also makes clear why LuaJIT became more than a faster lua executable: it adds the FFI library, built-in bit operations, JIT control modules, profiler support, and Lua/C API extensions while remaining API and ABI compatible with Lua 5.1.

Adoption history

The official LuaJIT overview says it has been used in games, appliances, network and graphics applications, numerical simulations, trading platforms, and other specialty applications, and is part of large web, SaaS, networking, set-top-box, and embedded deployments.

Package-manager adoption is broad: the input metadata lists LuaJIT packages for Homebrew, MacPorts, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Alpine, Arch, openSUSE, Nix, Scoop, and Winget. That distribution footprint reflects LuaJIT's role as both a developer tool and a dependency of packages that want Lua speed or LuaJIT FFI.

How it is used

The normal command-line entry point is luajit on POSIX systems and luajit.exe on Windows. It runs Lua chunks, scripts, and interactive sessions, and it supports Lua-like CLI options plus LuaJIT-specific bytecode, JIT-control, and optimization switches.

In package ecosystems, LuaJIT is commonly selected when a project targets Lua 5.1 semantics but wants faster execution, C interop through FFI, or compatibility with ecosystems such as OpenResty and LuaJIT-oriented LuaRocks modules.

Why package nerds care

LuaJIT is package-nerd-famous because it sits at the intersection of language runtime, C ABI, and distribution policy. The project now uses rolling releases from git rather than release tarballs, so downstream packages often package snapshots and must track branch policy carefully.

It also explains a lot of Lua packaging behavior: LuaRocks modules may distinguish Lua versions, LuaJIT, FFI availability, and ABI compatibility. Having LuaJIT as a separate package lets distributions provide both stock Lua and the high-performance Lua 5.1-compatible runtime.

Timeline

• 2005: LuaJIT development begins.
• 2010s: LuaJIT 2.0 rewrites the VM around a fast interpreter and trace compiler.
• 2020s: LuaJIT documents rolling releases and recommends following versioned branches rather than old tarball-style releases.
• 2026: Official status page lists v2.1 as the production branch.

Related projects

• Lua is the upstream language whose 5.1 API and ABI LuaJIT targets.
• OpenResty maintains its own LuaJIT branch for nginx/OpenResty workloads.
• LuaRocks packages Lua modules that may run on LuaJIT or depend on LuaJIT-specific FFI behavior.

Sources

• https://luajit.org/download.html
• https://luajit.org/extensions.html
• https://luajit.org/luajit.html
• https://luajit.org/running.html
• https://luajit.org/status.html
• source_facts.package-manager