Introduction

Luau Engine is a fork of Roblox Studio, released as free and open-source software. It keeps the editor, the DataModel and the Luau runtime you already work with every day, and adds a build pipeline that can compile the same project into a standalone game for Windows, macOS, Linux, the web and dedicated servers — as well as publishing to Roblox exactly as Studio does.

Why a fork?#

Roblox Studio is an extremely good editor for a very specific target. The instance tree, the property grid, the scripting model and the Luau type system make it fast to go from an idea to a running experience, and a huge amount of collective knowledge is built on top of that workflow.

The limitation has always been the destination. A place you build in Studio runs on Roblox and nowhere else. Luau Engine keeps the first half — the tools and the mental model — and replaces the second half with a target you choose at build time.

Concretely, Luau Engine gives you:

• The same editor. Explorer, Properties, Toolbox, Output, the script editor with Luau autocomplete and type hints, and the plugin API. Most Studio plugins load without modification.
• The same runtime semantics. game, services, Instance hierarchies, signals, attributes, CollectionService tags, the task scheduler, and the upstream Luau VM including native code generation.
• Source you can read and change. The editor, the runtime and the toolchain are open. Fix a bug, add an importer, ship a private build for your studio.
• Targets past Roblox. Native desktop executables, a WebAssembly bundle, a headless dedicated server, and experimental mobile output — from one project.

What it is not#

Being direct about the boundaries saves everyone time:

• It is not a way to run Roblox experiences outside Roblox. You cannot take somebody else's place, or content licensed to you only through Roblox, and export it. Exporting is for projects whose assets you own or have redistribution rights to.
• It is not a Roblox client. Standalone builds do not connect to Roblox servers, matchmaking, monetisation or moderation. If your game needs those, publish to Roblox.
• It is not bug-for-bug identical. A handful of Roblox-hosted services have no standalone equivalent and behave differently or not at all. Those differences are enumerated in API differences.

How a project flows through the engine#

  your project (.rbxlx + luauengine.toml)
              │
        ┌─────┴─────┐
        │  editor   │  Luau Engine Studio — edit, run, debug
        └─────┬─────┘
              │  luauengine build --target <t>
   ┌──────────┼──────────┬───────────┬──────────────┐
   ▼          ▼          ▼           ▼              ▼
 Roblox   Windows /   Web        Dedicated      Android /
 place    macOS /     (wasm)     server          iOS
          Linux                                (experimental)

The project is the source of truth. Nothing about a target is baked into your place file — you pick targets in luauengine.toml, and the same tree of instances and scripts is compiled for each one.

Where to go next#

If you are new to the Luau language itself rather than to the engine, the language documentation lives at luau.org.