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  5. Clojure vs Elixir

Clojure vs Elixir

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Clojure
Clojure
Stacks1.9K
Followers1.4K
Votes1.1K
GitHub Stars10.7K
Forks1.5K
Elixir
Elixir
Stacks3.5K
Followers3.3K
Votes1.3K
GitHub Stars26.0K
Forks3.5K

Clojure vs Elixir: What are the differences?

Clojure vs Elixir

Clojure and Elixir are two popular programming languages used to build robust and scalable web applications. While both languages are functional and run on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and the Erlang Virtual Machine (BEAM) respectively, there are several key differences that set them apart.

  1. Syntax: Clojure uses Lisp syntax, which is known for its simplicity and powerful abstraction capabilities. Elixir, on the other hand, is inspired by Ruby and has a more conventional syntax that is familiar to developers from object-oriented backgrounds.

  2. Concurrency Model: Clojure embraces the concepts of immutability and persistent data structures, making it suitable for writing concurrent and parallel programs. Elixir, on the other hand, is built on the Actor model and provides lightweight processes that communicate through message passing, making it highly scalable and fault-tolerant.

  3. Metaprogramming: Clojure offers a rich set of metaprogramming capabilities, allowing developers to write code that modifies itself at runtime. Elixir also supports metaprogramming, but it takes advantage of its macro system to provide powerful abstractions and domain-specific language constructs.

  4. Tooling: Clojure has a mature ecosystem and benefits from the vast array of tools available for the Java platform. Elixir, on the other hand, has built-in support for package management, testing, and documentation generation, making it easy for developers to get started and maintain their projects.

  5. Concurrency Primitives: In Clojure, concurrency primitives like locks and semaphores are not commonly used due to its focus on immutability and functional programming. In Elixir, concurrency is a first-class citizen, and the language provides abstractions like tasks, processes, and supervisors to make it easy to build concurrent applications.

  6. Fault Tolerance: Elixir's built-in support for fault tolerance through supervision trees makes it ideal for building robust and resilient systems. Clojure, while not providing native fault tolerance constructs like Elixir, can leverage the Java ecosystem to handle fault tolerance through libraries and frameworks.

In summary, Clojure and Elixir have distinct differences in terms of syntax, concurrency models, metaprogramming capabilities, tooling support, concurrency primitives, and fault tolerance mechanisms. These differences make them suitable for different use cases and cater to the preferences and requirements of different developers.

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Advice on Clojure, Elixir

Timm
Timm

VP Of Engineering at Flexperto GmbH

Nov 10, 2020

Decided

We have a lot of experience in JavaScript, writing our services in NodeJS allows developers to transition to the back end without any friction, without having to learn a new language. There is also the option to write services in TypeScript, which adds an expressive type layer. The semi-shared ecosystem between front and back end is nice as well, though specifically NodeJS libraries sometimes suffer in quality, compared to other major languages.

As for why we didn't pick the other languages, most of it comes down to "personal preference" and historically grown code bases, but let's do some post-hoc deduction:

Go is a practical choice, reasonably easy to learn, but until we find performance issues with our NodeJS stack, there is simply no reason to switch. The benefits of using NodeJS so far outweigh those of picking Go. This might change in the future.

PHP is a language we're still using in big parts of our system, and are still sometimes writing new code in. Modern PHP has fixed some of its issues, and probably has the fastest development cycle time, but it suffers around modelling complex asynchronous tasks, and (on a personal note) lack of support for writing in a functional style.

We don't use Python, Elixir or Ruby, mostly because of personal preference and for historic reasons.

Rust, though I personally love and use it in my projects, would require us to specifically hire for that, as the learning curve is quite steep. Its web ecosystem is OK by now (see https://www.arewewebyet.org/), but in my opinion, it is still no where near that of the other web languages. In other words, we are not willing to pay the price for playing this innovation card.

Haskell, as with Rust, I personally adore, but is simply too esoteric for us. There are problem domains where it shines, ours is not one of them.

682k views682k
Comments
Fronted
Fronted

Nov 23, 2020

Decided

We’re a new startup so we need to be able to deliver quick changes as we find our product market fit. We’ve also got to ensure that we’re moving money safely, and keeping perfect records. The technologies we’ve chosen mix mature but well maintained frameworks like Django, with modern web-first and api-first front ends like GraphQL, NextJS, and Chakra. We use a little Golang sparingly in our backend to ensure that when we interact with financial services, we do so with statically compiled, strongly typed, and strictly limited and reviewed code.

You can read all about it in our linked blog post.

720k views720k
Comments
Jakes
Jakes

Mar 21, 2021

Decided

#rust @{#elixir}|topic:null| So am creating a messenger with voice call capabilities app which the user signs up using phone number and so at first i wanted to use Actix so i learned Rust so i thought to myself because well its first i felt its a bit immature to use actix web even though some companies are using Rust but we cant really say the full potential of Rust in a full scale app for example in Discord both Elixir and Rust are used meaning there is equal need for them but for Elixir so many companies use it from Whatsapp, Wechat, etc and this means something for Rust is not ready to go full scale we cant assume all this possibilities when it come Rust. So i decided to go the Erlang way after alot of Thinking so Do you think i made the right decision?Am 19 year programmer so i assume am not experienced as you so your answer or comment would really valuable to me

284k views284k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Clojure
Clojure
Elixir
Elixir

Clojure is designed to be a general-purpose language, combining the approachability and interactive development of a scripting language with an efficient and robust infrastructure for multithreaded programming. Clojure is a compiled language - it compiles directly to JVM bytecode, yet remains completely dynamic. Clojure is a dialect of Lisp, and shares with Lisp the code-as-data philosophy and a powerful macro system.

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.

Statistics
GitHub Stars
10.7K
GitHub Stars
26.0K
GitHub Forks
1.5K
GitHub Forks
3.5K
Stacks
1.9K
Stacks
3.5K
Followers
1.4K
Followers
3.3K
Votes
1.1K
Votes
1.3K
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 118
    It is a lisp
  • 101
    Concise syntax
  • 100
    Persistent data structures
  • 90
    jvm-based language
  • 89
    Concurrency
Cons
  • 11
    Cryptic stacktraces
  • 5
    Need to wrap basically every java lib
  • 4
    Toxic community
  • 3
    Slow application startup
  • 3
    Good code heavily relies on local conventions
Pros
  • 174
    Concurrency
  • 163
    Functional
  • 133
    Erlang vm
  • 113
    Great documentation
  • 105
    Great tooling
Cons
  • 11
    Fewer jobs for Elixir experts
  • 7
    Smaller userbase than other mainstream languages
  • 5
    Elixir's dot notation less readable ("object": 1st arg)
  • 4
    Dynamic typing
  • 2
    Difficult to understand
Integrations
Java
Java
No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Clojure, Elixir?

JavaScript

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Python

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

PHP

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Scala

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Swift

Swift

Writing code is interactive and fun, the syntax is concise yet expressive, and apps run lightning-fast. Swift is ready for your next iOS and OS X project — or for addition into your current app — because Swift code works side-by-side with Objective-C.

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