Install odin with Homebrew

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository

Commands and aliases

• odin

Project history

Creator Bill Hall, known as Ginger Bill, lists Odin as a public project running from 2016 onward, and the GitHub repository was created on November 23, 2016. The project grew around a language design that favors explicitness, simple control flow, manual memory management, compile-time facilities, and direct interop rather than a managed runtime.

The repository and official release feed show an active compiler, standard library, vendor binding, and tooling project rather than only a language specification. Development snapshots such as dev-2026-06 package compiler changes, language features, cryptography packages, bindings, and core-library fixes into downloadable artifacts for Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Adoption history

Odin's adoption path has been language-community driven: the official site, GitHub repository, package documentation site, examples, and monthly development builds make the compiler and library surface easy for enthusiasts to follow. Packaging across Homebrew, Arch, Nix, Scoop, MacPorts, Winget, and Linux distributions reflects a language that package managers treat as a developer tool worth shipping directly.

On July 1, 2026, the GitHub repository API reported 10,935 stars and 990 forks, which places Odin among the visible independent systems-language projects while still far outside the scale of mainstream platform languages.

How it is used

Developers use the `odin` executable to build native programs, run examples, generate documentation, and experiment with data-oriented designs. The official package browser exposes core and vendor packages, while the repository ships examples and tests that function as both compiler validation and learning material.

Odin is most relevant where developers want C-like control with a more opinionated type system and built-in features such as slices, dynamic arrays, SOA-oriented data layout, context passing, reflection, and package-based organization.

Why package nerds care

For package nerds, Odin is interesting because its package is the language: installing `brew install odin` gives a compiler, standard library, vendor bindings, tools, and examples that move together in development snapshots. The formula tracks a fast-moving upstream rather than a long-term-stable ABI ecosystem.

The package also illustrates how newer languages spread through multi-manager availability before they reach a 1.0-style maturity marker: Homebrew, Nix, Arch, Scoop, Winget, and other channels become part of the language's adoption surface.

Timeline

• 2016: Ginger Bill lists Odin as a project beginning in 2016, and the GitHub repository was created on November 23, 2016.
• 2023-2026: Odin's public site, package browser, examples, and dev releases present it as a usable systems language with ongoing compiler and library work.
• June 10, 2026: The dev-2026-06 release shipped downloadable builds and changes across language features, compiler improvements, new crypto packages, core packages, and vendor bindings.

Related projects

• Odin's ecosystem includes OLS, the Odin language server, and odinfmt, the formatter packaged separately by Homebrew. The package browser at pkg.odin-lang.org is also central because it exposes the standard and vendor package surface that developers evaluate before adopting the language.

Sources

• https://api.github.com/repos/odin-lang/Odin
• https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/odin
• https://github.com/odin-lang/Odin
• https://github.com/odin-lang/Odin/releases/tag/dev-2026-06
• https://odin-lang.org/
• https://pkg.odin-lang.org/
• https://www.gingerbill.org/