Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised May 28, 2026

Crystal (programming language)

Crystal is a high-level general-purpose, object-oriented programming language, designed and developed by Ary Borenszweig, Juan Wajnerman, Brian Cardiff and more than 530 contributors. With syntax inspired by the language Ruby, it is a compiled language with static type-checking, but specifying the types of variables or method arguments is generally unneeded. Types are resolved by an advanced global type inference algorithm. Crystal is currently in active development. It is released as free and open-source software under the Apache License version 2.0.

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Crystal
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ParadigmMulti-paradigm: object-oriented, concurrent
Designed byAry Borenszweig, Juan Wajnerman, Brian Cardiff
DeveloperManas Technology Solutions
First appearedJune 19, 2014 (2014-06-19)1
Stable release
1.20.22 Edit this on Wikidata / 15 May 2026 (15 May 2026)
Typing disciplinestatic, inferred, nominal, duck
Implementation languageCrystal
PlatformIA-32 (i386), x86-64, AArch643
OSLinux, macOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Windows3
LicenseApache License 2.0
Filename extensions.cr
Websitecrystal-lang.org Edit this at Wikidata
Influenced by
Ruby, Go4

Crystal is a high-level general-purpose, object-oriented programming language, designed and developed by Ary Borenszweig, Juan Wajnerman, Brian Cardiff and more than 530 contributors.5 With syntax inspired by the language Ruby,6 it is a compiled language with static type-checking, but specifying the types of variables or method arguments is generally unneeded. Types are resolved by an advanced global type inference algorithm.78 Crystal is currently in active development. It is released as free and open-source software under the Apache License version 2.0.

History

Work on the language began in June 2011,9 with the aim of merging the elegance and productivity of Ruby with the speed, efficiency, and type safety of a compiled language.109 Initially named Joy, it was quickly renamed to Crystal.9

The Crystal compiler was first written in Ruby, but later rewritten in Crystal, thus becoming self-hosting, as of November 2013.11 The first official version was released in June 2014.12 In July 2016, Crystal joined the TIOBE index.

Description

Although resembling the Ruby language in syntax, Crystal compiles to much more efficient native code using an LLVM backend, at the cost of precluding the dynamic aspects of Ruby. The advanced global type inference used by the Crystal compiler, combined with union types, gives it more the feel of a higher-level scripting language than many other comparable programming languages. It has automated garbage collection and offers a Boehm collector. Crystal possesses a macro system and supports generics as well as method and operator overloading. Its concurrency model is inspired by communicating sequential processes (CSP) and implements lightweight fibers and channels (for interfiber communication), inspired by Go.4

Adoption

In 2020, it was reported that the infotainment units in vehicles produced by Nikola Corporation were written in Crystal.13 Much of the backend of the Kagi search engine is written with Crystal.14

Further reading

Further reading

References

References

  1. "Crystal 0.1.0 released!". crystal-lang. 19 June 2014.
  2. "Release 1.20.2". 15 May 2026. Retrieved 16 May 2026.
  3. "Crystal Platform Support". crystal-lang.org.
  4. "Crystal multithreading support". 23 February 2024.
  5. "Contributors". Retrieved July 25, 2019 – via GitHub.
  6. Borenszweig, Ary (June 16, 2016). "Crystal 0.18.0 released!". crystal-lang.org.
  7. Brian J., Cardiff (September 9, 2013). "Type inference part 1". crystal-lang.org.
  8. "Programming with Crystal: 'A language for humans and computers'". devm.io. July 3, 2023.
  9. David, María Inti (April 1, 2016). "The story behind #CrystalLang". manas.tech.
  10. Hsieh, Adler (September 20, 2015). "Why Crystal programming language?". adlerhsieh.com.
  11. Borenszweig, Ary (November 14, 2013). "Good bye Ruby Thursday". crystal-lang.org.
  12. Borenszweig, Ary (June 19, 2014). "Crystal 0.1.0 released!". crystal-lang.org.
  13. Pettinati, Martin (11 February 2020). "Nikola Motor Company: Crystal powered dashboards on the trucks of the future | Manas.Tech". Manas Technology Solutions.
  14. "Zac Nowicki – Tales from Kagi | CrystalConf 2023". 13 November 2023.
External links