v

V compiles to readable C and installs by cloning the repo and running make. The whole language is MIT: compiler, standard library, a built-in web framework and ORM, graphics and UI libraries, cross-compilation, hot code reloading, and a REPL. No paid tier, no enterprise build, no license that changes once you get big. Development runs on GitHub Sponsors and Patreon.

The pitch is Go's simplicity at C's speed without C's memory traps. Because the primary backend emits human-readable C, builds are fast and cross-compiling is easy, and you can read what the compiler actually produced when something goes sideways. Memory management is a per-build choice: garbage collection by default, fully manual, arena allocation, or the experimental autofree.

Solo: worth a weekend if you like small languages with batteries included. Small teams: good for internal tools and CLIs, not the revenue path. Large teams: Go and Rust have the libraries and the hiring pool, and Zig covers the same low-level niche with more production mileage.

The catch: V is still pre-1.0, and its own feature list marks "no undefined behavior" as a work in progress.