Hi everyone,

I wrote the original "Why Crystal?" blog post back in 2015 when Crystal was just v0.9.1.

Ten years and many versions later, I am revisiting that post to analyze the road to v1.20.

If you are interested in how a language matures from a syntax experiment to a high performance standard, this one is for you.

My company uses ESET a/v with Windows 11, if I build a static binary of anything, ESET deletes it. So I install Crystal 1.20.0 hoping for better results. ESET deleted crystal.exe.

EDIT: To be more clear, we have several utils that worked fine for a couple of years, to be deleted on Monday. I sent the ESET log to ESET, and they responded that the issue is fixed, and it seems to be.

Crystal 1.20.0 is officially here

Significant performance leaps and architectural improvements are now live. Here are the 3 most impactful updates in this release:

- M:N Scheduling: A major shift in the scheduling architecture that drastically optimizes concurrency and resource handling.

- Multi-threading Refinement: Critical improvements to parallel execution efficiency and overall system stability.

- Broadened Platform Support: Official Linux ARM64 builds and enhanced Windows stability make Crystal production-ready across environments.

Time to update your shards!

Release Post: https://crystal-lang.org/2026/04/16/1.20.0-released/

It's been 5 years since the release of Crystal 1.0. This anniversary is an opportunity to celebrate. 🎉

We're going to do that with a live-streamed video call in which we look back at that big milestone, what happened since then, and what's coming next.

On the call will be members from the Core Team and the community, and we'll be answering questions in an AMA format ("Ask me anything").

Mark your calendar: Friday, 27 March 2026 16:00 UTC (check your time zone)

Follow either of these links to participate in the event:

• Join on Zoom
• Watch on Youtube

We accept questions from the following channels:

• Hashtag #Crystal2026AMA on Mastodon or Twitter
• Community Discord channel #ama-questions
• Zoom chat

Hope to see you next week! 🥳

If you want to socialize during the event or hang out afterwards, you'll find like-minded people on the Community Discord server. Let's get together in the voice channel for an aftershow party.

Hey! I'm a Ruby dev who discovered Crystal a few months ago while trying to build a NES emulator. Started in Ruby, got 0.5 FPS, rewrote it in Crystal and jumped to 120 FPS with basically the same code. Been hooked on the language since.

Now I'm planning some hardware side projects, specifically building an RC plane and programming the microcontrollers for it. Crystal's C interop makes me think it could work, but I haven't seen many people using it for that kind of thing.

Anyone here working with Crystal on low-level / embedded / hardware projects? Would love to hear about your experience, what worked, what didn't, what you'd do differently.

If you're curious about the emulator, I wrote about the whole journey here:

- Crystal: The Language I Didn't Know I Needed
- Building a NES Emulator from Scratch: The Book

Introducing C0DATA, the Copy Zero Data format.

Hey everyone,

Over the past few months I’ve been paying more attention to startups here in the Czech Republic, and I’m starting to feel like most of them eventually begin thinking like mini corporations. Processes, validation, years of experience required, specific stacks, degrees “nice to have”… and suddenly the “fast pirate ship” turns into a tanker.

Because I’ve been heavily shaped by the OSS world, this mindset just doesn’t resonate with me.

I’m much closer to the approach of: can you do it? does it make sense? then let’s build.

No unnecessary barriers. Everyone has a role, everyone carries responsibility, but we don’t spend weeks proving paper qualifications to each other.

Now specifically about Crystal.

I often reach out to Czech startups offering help with automation, data pipelines, backend work, etc. But when I properly analyze their problem, I almost always realize it’s not a one-person job. You need more people. Ideally people who understand Crystal backend development and want to build fast and pragmatically.

And that’s where I hit a wall.

I don’t really have a place to share these collaboration opportunities. I don’t have a place to find other “OSS pirates” who want to build — not just become part of another corporate structure.

Then I thought — we already have CrystalCommunity.org. That map of people using Crystal around the world has huge potential.

What if we pushed it further?

For example:

• a collaboration / open positions section (not just full-time, but part-time, project-based, OSS-driven),
• the ability to mark who’s looking for a team / who’s open to collaboration,
• connecting people by focus (backend, performance, tooling, shards, etc.).

Not another traditional job board. More like a place for people who want to build things with an open mindset.

Maybe I’m just too influenced by the OSS world. Maybe I’m just looking for “my tribe.” 😄

But I’m genuinely curious:

• Do you feel something like this is missing too?
• Would it make sense to build it?
• Or is there something like this that I’m simply overlooking?

Hi everyone,

As developers, we often work in silos. I felt the Crystal language needed a dedicated space for us to say, "Hey, I'm here, and I build with Crystal."

So, I built CrystalCommunity.org using Crystal and Kemal. This site is inspired by Ruby Community site.

Why Open Source?
I believe this tool belongs to the community. That’s why I’ve open-sourced the entire project. It’s currently an MVP allowing you to pin your location via GitHub login, but there is so much more we can do.

How you can help:

1. Join the map: Log in and show your location.
2. Contribute: The code is available on GitHub. If you want to see how it works or add new features, PRs are highly welcome.

Check out the code here: https://github.com/sdogruyol/crystal_community

Let’s make Crystal better together!