Specific domains where clojure might not do so well are probably the same domains where the JVM is impractical, for example embedded or low-level programming, a

Specific domains where clojure might not do so well are probably the same domains where the JVM is impractical, for example embedded or low-level programming, anything where you have to interact heavily with the world outside of the JVM and have a small footprint. Obviously mobile looks like an area where common lisp has better options(with this announcement that makes two commercial implementations, the other one being mocl: https://wukix.com/mocl https://wukix.com/mocl). How about crazy experimental operating systems? https://github.com/froggey/Mezzano https://github.com/froggey/Mezzano If you want to write native(non-swing) guis LispWorks has that covered, and the open source gtk/qt bindings, while a bit unlispy work very well. Racket has a pretty cool framework too. There is also the fact that a lot of programmers, rationally, or irrationally, simply dislike the JVM. Pretty much everything I dislike about clojure has more to do with the JVM than the core design itself. Both lispworks and franz maintain success lists, so you can look at some of these projects if you want to see some areas where lisp has done fine: http://www.lispworks.com/success-stories/index.html http://www.lispworks.com/success-stories/index.html http://franz.com/success/ http://franz.com/success/