Factsheet
Paradigms Multi-paradigm: imperative, concurrent, procedural, functional
Designed by Andrew Kelley
First appeared 8 February 2016; 10 years ago (2016-02-08)
Paradigms Multi-paradigm: imperative, concurrent, procedural, functional
Designed by Andrew Kelley
First appeared 8 February 2016; 10 years ago (2016-02-08)
Zig Programming Language
ziglang.org
Home ⚡ Zig Programming Language
Zig is a general-purpose programming language and toolchain for maintaining robust, optimal and reusable software.
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Zig_(programming_language)
Zig (programming language) - Wikipedia
2 days ago - Zig is a system programming language designed to be a general-purpose improvement to the C programming language. It is free and open-source software, released under an MIT License. Differences with C relate to control flow, function calls, library imports, variable declaration and Unicode support.
What do C programmers think of the Zig language in 2023?
I think Zig will be big. After it comes out of beta. More on reddit.com
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July 4, 2023Why aren’t more people talking about Zig? This language is insanely good!
It's fast moving and it hasn't reached 1.0 yet. Breaking changes, regressions are inevitable. More on reddit.com
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April 4, 2025What are the technical advantages that Zig has over other languages?
Simplicity, clear semantics of code (due to "no hidden control flow" policy), nice standard library, nice comptime metaprogramming, clear and explicit memory management model via allocators, a lot of quality of life features while still being a low level systems programming language; minimalism in some sense can be also considered as an advantage More on reddit.com
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July 4, 2025How do people write programming languages using the programming languages it self?
They always start entirely with another language, C is a common starting point. Eventually, the language reaches a point where you can use it to compile programs and it becomes possible to rewrite parts of the language in the language. Eventually, the language is written entirely in the language. Even C was originally written in B and gradually converted to C over time. B started out in A, A was written in assembler. Languages that use the JVM are often written in Java to start with. More on reddit.com
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March 8, 2024Videos
02:39
Zig in 100 Seconds - YouTube
04:03
The Zig language: Like C, only better - YouTube
09:34
zig will change programming forever - YouTube
Why learn Zig?
14:24
Get Good at Zig with these resources for learning the language ...
01:43:10
Zig - What, How and Why - YouTube
Hacker News
news.ycombinator.com › item
Zig; what I think after months of using it | Hacker News
February 12, 2025 - I used Zig for (most of) Advent Of Code last year, and while I did get up-to-speed on it faster than I did with Rust the previous year, I think that was just Second (low-level) Language syndrome. Having experienced it, I'm glad that I did (learning how cumbersome memory management is makes ...
Reddit
reddit.com › r/c_programming › what do c programmers think of the zig language in 2023?
r/C_Programming on Reddit: What do C programmers think of the Zig language in 2023?
July 4, 2023 -
The language is gaining quite a bit of traction lately and seems to have matured since the last time I saw it discussed in his subreddit.
I’ve personally tried it a couple of times and am mostly intrigued by the ‘comptime’ feature as an alternative to macros and generics.
Do you think you’ll use Zig in the future for project where you currently use C? Are there any features that perhaps you think could and should be added to the C standard?
GitHub
github.com › ziglang › zig
GitHub - ziglang/zig: Moved to Codeberg · GitHub
Moved to Codeberg. Contribute to ziglang/zig development by creating an account on GitHub.
Starred by 42.8K users
Forked by 3.1K users
Languages Zig 98.4% | C 1.1% | C++ 0.2% | Python 0.1% | CMake 0.1% | JavaScript 0.1%
Medium
medium.com › @vladimirvivien › things-i-like-about-zig-as-a-go-programmer-75eb02aab00f
Things I like about Zig as a Go Programmer | by Vladimir Vivien | Medium
October 25, 2023 - Zig however, stays true to its “no hidden control flow” mantra and does not have automatic memory management and instead provides APIs that let the programmer manage memory manually via its standard library. As a language designed for system programming, Zig offers a large set of features around its type system centered around safety and C ABI compatibility.
Codeberg
codeberg.org › ziglang › zig
ziglang/zig: General-purpose programming language and toolchain for maintaining robust, optimal, and reusable software. - Codeberg.org
zig - General-purpose programming language and toolchain for maintaining robust, optimal, and reusable software.
LogRocket
blog.logrocket.com › home › getting started with the zig programming language
Getting started with the Zig programming language - LogRocket Blog
June 4, 2024 - Zig is not just a language — it’s a complete, fully-featured toolchain, meaning you can use Zig to create, develop, test, and build programs/libraries without third-party build automation tools. Zig toolchain can also cross-compile C/C++ projects, so you can productively use Zig toolchain to build your existing C/C++ projects.
Reddit
reddit.com › r/zig › why aren’t more people talking about zig? this language is insanely good!
r/Zig on Reddit: Why aren’t more people talking about Zig? This language is insanely good!
April 4, 2025 -
I’ve been experimenting with Zig, and I’m honestly shocked at how well it balances simplicity, performance, and safety. No hidden control flow, build system built-in, and explicit memory management—why isn’t this getting more attention? What’s your take? Is Zig the future, or is something holding it back?
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It's fast moving and it hasn't reached 1.0 yet. Breaking changes, regressions are inevitable.
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It's still quite unstable which disqualifies it for many / most businesses and people, there's nothing super revolutionary in terms of design so language nerds don't necessarily "flock to it", and it's unsafe making it not really relevant to the whole safety debate doing on right now.
DEV Community
dev.to › dev_tips › zig-rust-go-i-tried-3-low-level-languages-and-heres-what-im-sticking-with-4gpp
Zig, Rust, Go?! I tried 3 low-level languages and here’s what I’m sticking with - DEV Community
August 28, 2025 - Documentation is hit or miss. The language itself is moving fast, so tutorials and examples are often out of date. Zig rewards the hacker mindset. It doesn’t hold your hand. If you’re building something deeply embedded, a kernel, or a custom OS loader Zig is thrilling.
Visual Studio Marketplace
marketplace.visualstudio.com › items
Zig Language - Visual Studio Marketplace
Extension for Visual Studio Code - Language support for the Zig programming language
Reddit
reddit.com › r/zig › what are the technical advantages that zig has over other languages?
r/Zig on Reddit: What are the technical advantages that Zig has over other languages?
July 4, 2025 -
I'm new to systems programming languages. I've used Python and JavaScript before and more recently Go, and I want to learn a modern systems programming language for things like wasm, graphical APIs, and experiments with Raspberry Pi.
I made some comparisons with algorithms between Rust, Zig, Odin and C, as a reference, and although I know that these comparisons do not say much, they allowed me to discover that Zig programs used from zero to 0.25 of the RAM used by C, with C being the best second.
I started to find out why this could be and what I found is that Zig's program makes fewer system calls by default than C, while Rust or Odin make more system calls. I don't understand much of this, but I found it an interesting feature that Zig does these optimizations or decluttered binaries by default.
So, I would like to know more about Zig and what unique features the language provides by design. What have you discovered, or what do you find most interesting about Zig in its functional aspects?
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Simplicity, clear semantics of code (due to "no hidden control flow" policy), nice standard library, nice comptime metaprogramming, clear and explicit memory management model via allocators, a lot of quality of life features while still being a low level systems programming language; minimalism in some sense can be also considered as an advantage
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Most people here will point out Zig's advantages already, but to tackle your "less syscalls and less memory" remarks, it might have to do with the fact that Zig doesn't use libc (by default). libc is C's standard library, that's used by basically every program in C, C++, Rust, and many others. Honestly, most software depends on libc. Zig, on the other hand, has its own standard library (also written in zig) that can take advantage of Zig's features and improvements, possibly making your program more efficient. IIRC Zig's general purpose allocator already outperforms libc's memory allocator in some cases (don't quote me on this)
Hacker News
news.ycombinator.com › item
Zig is one of the most interesting languages I've seen in a very long time, and ... | Hacker News
September 30, 2020 - It manages to address all of C++'s biggest shortcomings, which, in my view, are 1. language complexity, 2. compilation time, 3. safety -- in this order -- and it does so in a language that is arguably simpler than C, can be fully learned in a day or two (although the full implications of the ...
Reddit
reddit.com › r/zig › how do people write programming languages using the programming languages it self?
r/Zig on Reddit: How do people write programming languages using the programming languages it self?
March 8, 2024 -
I have a question. In the writing of Zig, the developers used 5 programming languages. Python, C, C++, Javascript and Zig. And Zig is used 95.9% of Zig. My question is, HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? Like writing a programming language in the programming language you are writing. Can someone explain my head is so messed up right now.
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They always start entirely with another language, C is a common starting point. Eventually, the language reaches a point where you can use it to compile programs and it becomes possible to rewrite parts of the language in the language. Eventually, the language is written entirely in the language. Even C was originally written in B and gradually converted to C over time. B started out in A, A was written in assembler. Languages that use the JVM are often written in Java to start with.
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In short, it works like this: get a rough idea of what you want zig to look like write a zig compiler in another compiled language (e.g C++) compile the compiler you just wrote with gcc or clang write another compiler in zig compile the new compiler using the old compiler keep implementing new features in zig, always compiling the next version of the compiler using the previous one
Lohr Dev
blog.lohr.dev › after-a-day-of-programming-in-zig
After a day of programming in Zig
October 14, 2024 - Even though it simplifies a lot, I like to say that Zig is to C what Rust to C++ is. Others say, that Zig is the modern successor of C. As a rule of thumb, it probably makes sense to use Zig in projects where you would have used C before. I usually learn new programming languages by simply writing some simple programs from start to finish.
Hacker News
news.ycombinator.com › item
Why is Zig so cool? | Hacker News
November 11, 2025 - I can say the same (although my career spans only 30 years), or, more accurately, that it's one of the few languages that surprised me most · Coming to it from a language design perspective, what surprised me is just how far partial evaluation can be taken. While strictly weaker than AST macros ...
Reddit
reddit.com › r/programming › what makes the zig programming language unique?
r/programming on Reddit: What Makes the Zig Programming Language Unique?
October 6, 2022 - Zig has just taken the path that all languages should have taken by now and decoupled generics from their type system so you don't end up with a bastardized language within a language that has weird, inconsistent rules and behaviors.
Zig Guide
zig.guide › welcome
Welcome | zig.guide
January 4, 2026 - Get started with the Zig programming language. Zig is a general-purpose programming language and toolchain for maintaining robust, optimal, and reusable software.
Ziggit
ziggit.dev › brainstorming
Zig programming language as First-class citizen - Brainstorming - Ziggit
November 7, 2024 - Some days ago i published posts with the same title on OpenWRT Feature requests forum OpenWRT subreddit OpenWRT is open source Linux Embedded system 99.99% of application code is written on C relative big(r/openwrt has 34K members vs 18K of r/zig) and active community Looks like a suitable environment Posts were kind of ping - just check the reaction to “foreign body” Oh god no C is going to stay around forever.
Hacker News
news.ycombinator.com › item
Lessons from Zig | Hacker News
February 12, 2026 - Regarding HTTP in Zig, it might be removed in 1.0, if I am reading this correctly. Though Zig std does have both an HTTP client and an HTTP server · https://github.com/ziglang/zig/issues/910#issuecomment-39548