Introduction to Lua

Lua on Wapka

Lua is a lightweight, fast scripting language. It powers games (Roblox, World of Warcraft), embedded systems, and now your Wapka site.

New to Lua? Read Learn Lua in Y Minutes or the official Lua 5.4 manual. You only need the basics — Wapka handles the heavy lifting.

How Wapka runs your code

Wapka executes Lua inside PHP LuaSandbox — a secure sandbox with CPU and memory limits. Your code cannot touch the filesystem, call PHP functions, or access other sites' data. It's safe by default.

When a visitor hits your site:

Browser Request
  → Wapka loads your site
    → Runs lua_init (your script)
      → framework() creates your app
        → Route matching finds the right handler
          → Your handler runs, returns data
            → Wapka sends the response

What you can build

Your first script

local app = framework()

app:get("/", function(ctx)
    return { message = "Hello, Wapka!" }
end)

Save this in your site's lua_init setting. Visit your site. You'll see {"message":"Hello, Wapka!"}. That's a real JSON API — zero configuration, instant deployment.

The big picture

Every script gets these tools for free:

Next: Quickstart — get your first site running in 2 minutes.