In preparation for onboarding new core lighting developers are preparing a series of videos. So I've been asking ChatGPT about CLN developer features, particularly with comparison with other projects people might be familiar with.

Of course, I compare myself with Linux, but it's interesting to see comparisons against other projects:

**Type-safety**:

OpenBSD High

Bitcoin Core High

Core Lightning Very high for C

Nginx Low

curl Moderate

MySQL Moderate

SQLite Moderate

CLN sits near the top among major C codebases for safety discipline.

**PR Submission**

Core Lightning’s PR flow is unusually strict, slow-moving, and review-heavy compared to most open-source C projects — closer to Bitcoin Core or OpenBSD than to typical GitHub projects.

---

Compared to “average OSS”

Most projects:

Feature-oriented PRs

Informal review

Few required reviewers

Patch squashing common

Tests sometimes optional

Architectural discussion often post-merge

CLN:

Patch-first culture

Pre-merge architectural scrutiny

Extremely high reviewer expectations

Tests are mandatory

Clean, narrative commit history matters