How many Zig programs distributed via Homebrew ?

What is Zig ? 🔗

Zig is an imperative, general-purpose, and compiled systems programming language created by Andrew Kelley. It is designed as a modern alternative to C, aiming for simplicity, robustness, and optimal performance. The language is free, open-source, and intended for a variety of programming tasks, including application-level, embedded, and systems software.

Core Goals 🔗

A primary objective of Zig is to improve upon the C programming language. It seeks to be a better solution for tasks currently handled by C, with a focus on readability, maintainability, and robustness. Zig avoids adding new syntax for similar concepts and makes control flow explicit, meaning if code doesn’t look like it’s calling a function, it isn’t.

Key Features 🔗

Zig incorporates several modern features while maintaining low-level control.

• Simplicity: Zig does not have a preprocessor, macros, or hidden memory allocations, which contributes to its simplicity. The entire syntax is specified in a relatively small grammar file.
• Comptime: It features comptime, which allows code to be executed at compile-time. This enables powerful metaprogramming and functionality similar to macros without needing a separate preprocessor.
• Safety and Robustness: While Zig, like C, uses manual memory management, it includes features to improve safety. Error handling is explicit, and the language includes option types to help prevent common bugs found in C programs.
• Performance: Zig is designed for high performance and offers low-level control similar to C. It is often faster than C due to optimizations, direct exposure of SIMD vector types, and the fact that all code is optimized together in a single compilation unit.

Common Use Cases 🔗

Zig is well-suited for systems programming, developing low-level libraries, and creating utilities that require a blend of performance and reliability. Its compatibility with C libraries and its safety features make it a strong candidate for these applications. The language also supports cross-compilation as a primary feature, allowing developers to build executables for numerous target platforms, including modern systems like ARM and x86-64, as well as WebAssembly.

Statistics of zig programming language 🔗

On December 16th 2025, The number of CLI apps written in zig and distributed via Homebrew Core Formulae is 15 apps.

You may like to compare it with Go , Rust , or OCaml .

Apps written in zig and distributed via Homebrew Core Formulae 🔗

• bold : Drop-in replacement for Apple system linker ld
• cargo-zigbuild : Compile Cargo project with zig as linker
• fancy-cat : PDF reader for terminal emulators using the Kitty image protocol
• hevi : Hex viewer
• nkt : TUI for fast and simple interacting with your BibLaTeX database
• zigup : Download and manage zig compilers
• zls : Language Server for Zig
• glyph : Converts images/video to ASCII art
• ncdu : NCurses Disk Usage
• anyzig : Universal zig executable that runs any version of zig
• flow-control : Programmer’s text editor
• superhtml : HTML Language Server & Templating Language Library
• zigmod : Package manager for the Zig programming language
• lsr : Ls but with io_uring
• zf : Command-line fuzzy finder that prioritizes matches on filenames

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