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Prometheus is a Lua obfuscator written in pure Lua.

It applies a range of AST-based transformations to make source code significantly harder to read, analyze, and reverse engineer.
These include techniques such as control-flow flattening, constant encryption, and other Lua-specific obfuscation strategies.

The project was inspired by the excellent javascript-obfuscator.

Currently, Prometheus supports:

• Lua 5.1
• LuaU (basic support is available, but still not fully finished)

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Quick Start

Try the browser version first:

Install CLI (Linux/macOS)

Install latest release with one command:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/prometheus-lua/Prometheus/master/install.sh | sh

Then use the CLI directly:

prometheus-lua --version
prometheus-lua --preset Medium ./your_file.lua

The release bundle includes a Lua runtime, so no separate Lua install is required for the packaged CLI.

To update to the latest release:

prometheus-lua update

To uninstall:

rm -f ~/.local/bin/prometheus-lua && rm -rf ~/.local/share/prometheus-lua

Local source usage

git clone https://github.com/prometheus-lua/Prometheus.git
cd Prometheus
lua cli.lua --preset Medium ./your_file.lua

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Highlights

AST-Based Works on structured syntax trees instead of simple text replacements.

Pure Lua Implemented in pure Lua with no heavy external runtime dependencies.

Practical Protection Focused on real obfuscation passes useful for shipped Lua applications.

Included techniques

• Control-flow obfuscation / flattening
• Constant and string encryption
• Lua-specific runtime tricks
• Anti-tamper related transformations
• Additional AST-based obfuscation passes

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Documentation

You can find the full documentation, including the getting started guide, here:

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Requirements

Packaged CLI releases include a bundled Lua runtime. For source usage, Prometheus requires LuaJIT or Lua 5.1+.

Lua 5.1 binaries can be downloaded here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/luabinaries/files/5.1.5/Tools%20Executables/

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Example

Input

-- input.lua
print("Hello, World!");

Obfuscated output

-- input.obfuscated.lua
return(function(...)local L={"afT6mf1V","/7mJXsuvmE1c/fT3";"tn1ZSn6=","37ghSJM=";"WqermfWAWuuZpb3XX7M=","tqXGSJ3u","XQXpL9x21dxAWJa//p==","SrM=";"3q+5SJM=","/D==";"t7XUt0p=";"mIeOmIx9";"LdgrBfWdWuNABsb+KJxj","SJWJ4dahKsebW7t+KQv=","/cDu3AvP/D==";"Llv7uD==","tJWhFfTE";"TQ43ctIuy9HIop==","mEu93p==";"WJax1sXEXEaxWuxGt6==","t0gPSEp=",...
-- remaining obfuscated output omitted

For more advanced use cases, configuration, and presets, see the documentation.

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Tests

To run the Prometheus test suite:

lua ./tests.lua [--Linux]

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Community

Prometheus has an official Discord server:

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License and Commercial Use

Prometheus is licensed under the Prometheus License, a modified MIT-style license.

You are free to use, modify, and distribute this software, including for commercial purposes, under the following conditions:

• Any commercial product, wrapper, or service (including SaaS or hosted solutions) that uses or integrates Prometheus must include clear attribution to:

Based on Prometheus by Elias Oelschner, https://github.com/prometheus-lua/Prometheus

• The attribution must be visible in the product’s:
  • UI
  • documentation
  • public website
• The obfuscated output files generated by Prometheus do not need to include any license or copyright notice.
• Derivative works and public forks must also include a statement in their README noting that they are based on Prometheus.

Full license text: Prometheus License

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