My Lisp vs Carnets
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
My Lisp
A comprehensive Lisp programming environment for iOS and macOS devices. It offers a local interpreter, editor, and extensive libraries for learning and developing Lisp programs, including advanced mathematical functions and symbolic derivation.
- Local Lisp interpreter
- Integrated editor
- Core and mathematical operators
- Advanced mathematics functions
- Symbolic derivation module
- Library and example files
- User and reference manuals
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My Lisp is a complete and universal Lisp environment running directly on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. This interpreter is true to the original John McCarthy Lisp implementation with the fundamental 7 operators quote, atom, eq, car, cdr, cons, cond, along with lambda and label. My Lisp also contains core and mathematical operators borrowed from other Lisp dialects (Le Lisp, Lisp 1.5, MacLisp, Common Lisp and Scheme to name a few) to make it easy to learn, program, and most importantly, enjoy Lisp. It also features built-in functions for advanced mathematics, including complex numbers and numerical analysis (roots and zeros finder, integral approximation). The complete description of the fundamental, core, and built-in functions is available using a set of library functions completely written in My Lisp. My Lisp offers an interpreter and an editor, all working on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and most importantly, without requiring any server connection, that is, the interpreter is executing locally on the iPhone, iPad or Mac My Lisp is installed on. Library and example files contain the source code of classical functions and problems solved by My Lisp and may be used as reference to learn Lisp and develop other programs. They include classical puzzles (hanoi and n-queens), basic mathematical functions (gcd, lcm, factorial, fibonacci, prime?), and the historical apply, mapcar and maplist functions. The Lambda Calculus example file contains various functions related to Lambda Calculus and Combinators, with alpha-conversion, beta-reduction, de Bruijn notations, etc. As a special note, the example file Symbolic Derivation contains a complete yet extensible symbolic derivation module allowing to compute the formal derivation of virtually any symbolic function expressed as a Lisp expression. A user manual and a reference manual are available from within the application but also on My Lisp web site (https://lisp.lsrodier.net) and in Apple Books. The complete source code of the library and example files is part of My Lisp. Last but not least, this overview couldn’t end without a sample definition of the notorious REPL function: (define (REPL eval_me) (REPL (println (eval (read)))))
Carnets
This app offers a standalone Jupyter notebook environment for creating and running code snippets, combining them with text and Markdown. It includes pre-installed scientific packages and allows for offline use, making it ideal for education and research.
- Standalone Jupyter notebook implementation
- Embedded Python interpreter
- Offline functionality
- Pre-installed scientific packages
- Supports Jupyterlab
- Package installation via %pip
- Notebook sharing and opening
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Jupyter notebooks are a powerful tool used in education and research. You can write small snippets of Python code and observe the result on screen, combine with paragraphs of text, using Markdown. Carnets provides a complete, stand-alone, implementation of Jupyter notebooks. Everything runs on your device, using the embedded Python interpreter; you do not need an internet connection. You can chose between Jupyter notebooks and the more advance Jupyterlab using Settings. Numpy, Sympy, Matplotlib, Pandas, lxml, bokeh, nbextensions (including ipywidgets) and many other packages are pre-installed. To see the full list of installed packages, type "%pip list" in a code window. You can add more packages using "%pip install packageName", but only if they are pure Python. If you need scipy, seaborn or scikit-learn, please use our other App, "Carnets - Jupyter (with scipy)". You can share your notebooks with other apps and also open notebooks or directories managed by other apps. Partial list of installed packages: astropy, babel, bokeh, cryptography, cvxopt, Fiona, geopandas, geopy, lxml, matplotlib, numpy, openCV, pandas, pillow, pyFFTW, pyproj, rasterio, regex, shapely, sympy, wordcloud.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Carnets at Free against My Lisp's $3.99. Carnets also leads on rating (4.6 vs 4.1) and ratings volume (316 vs 17). On update cadence, ads, in-app purchases and chart position there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Carnets is free to download; My Lisp costs $3.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Carnets holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.1. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Carnets has 316 ratings behind it against 17, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 69% of My Lisp's written reviews are positive against 78% of Carnets's.
My Lisp ships an update every 6 weeks, Carnets monthly. The most recent releases landed on September 22, 2026 and September 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | My Lisp | Carnets |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $3.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.1 (17 ratings) | 4.6 (316 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 68.8% of reviews | 78.4% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 17 | 316 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 6 weeks | Monthly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Best chart rank | #85 — better | #89 |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 14.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 19 MB | 1.4 GB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Laurent Rodier | Nicolas Holzschuch |
Customer experience
My Lisp
Carnets
Bugs and requests
My Lisp
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Carnets
Reported bugs
4 issues- Crashes and freezes
- Issues with saving and loading notebooks
- Problems with running scripts and notebooks
- Incompatibility with newer iOS versions
Requested features
5 requests- Add support for SciPy, Scikit-learn, and other scientific computing libraries
- Improve file management and integration with cloud storage services
- Implement split-screen or multi-window support
- Add more keyboard shortcuts and customization options
- Improve error handling and provide more detailed error messages
In-app purchases
My Lisp
No in-app purchases
Carnets
No in-app purchases









