Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

Elixir

3.4K
3.2K
+ 1
1.3K
Elm

722
740
+ 1
318
Add tool

Elixir vs Elm: What are the differences?

Introduction:

Elixir and Elm are both functional programming languages that have gained popularity in recent years. While they share some similarities, there are several key differences between the two.

  1. Concurrency and Distribution: Elixir is designed to handle concurrency and distributed computing, thanks to its built-in support for the actor-based model known as the "Erlang virtual machine" (BEAM). This makes it a powerful tool for building scalable and fault-tolerant systems. On the other hand, Elm does not have native support for concurrency and distribution, as it focuses primarily on building web front-end applications.

  2. Type System: Elixir has a dynamic type system, meaning that types are checked at runtime. This allows for flexibility and runtime metaprogramming. On the contrary, Elm has a strong static type system, which means that types are checked at compile-time. This helps catch errors early on and ensures more robust and reliable code.

  3. Error Handling: Elixir uses a "let-it-crash" philosophy, where errors are embraced and managed through supervision trees. This approach allows for fault-tolerant systems, as failing processes can be easily restarted. On the other hand, Elm encourages a more strict error handling approach, where errors are explicitly managed and prevented through the use of Elm's type system.

  4. Tooling and Community: Elixir has a vibrant ecosystem with a wide range of libraries, frameworks, and tools. It also benefits from the larger Erlang ecosystem, which provides a wealth of battle-tested tools and libraries for building scalable systems. Elm, on the other hand, has a more focused community, primarily centered around web development. While its ecosystem is smaller, it offers a curated set of tools and libraries specifically tailored for building front-end applications.

  5. Performance: Elixir has a reputation for being highly performant, thanks to its efficiency in handling concurrency and parallelism. It can handle a high number of concurrent connections and process millions of messages per second. Elm, on the other hand, focuses on providing a reliable and optimized experience for front-end applications. It achieves this by having a deterministic model update, which ensures predictable and efficient rendering.

  6. Learning Curve: Elixir has a steeper learning curve compared to Elm. This is mainly due to its powerful and flexible nature, as well as the need to understand the concepts of functional programming and the Erlang ecosystem. Elm, on the other hand, has a more approachable learning curve, especially for developers already familiar with JavaScript and web development. Its strong type system and compiler-assisted development make it easier to catch errors and reason about code.

In Summary, Elixir is a language that excels in concurrency, fault tolerance, and scalability, with a dynamic type system and a strong community. Elm, on the other hand, is focused on building robust front-end applications with a strong static type system, deterministic updates, and a curated ecosystem.

Decisions about Elixir and Elm

#rust #elixir 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

See more
Timm Stelzer
VP Of Engineering at Flexperto GmbH · | 18 upvotes · 601.1K views

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.

See more
Get Advice from developers at your company using StackShare Enterprise. Sign up for StackShare Enterprise.
Learn More
Pros of Elixir
Pros of Elm
  • 172
    Concurrency
  • 161
    Functional
  • 133
    Erlang vm
  • 112
    Great documentation
  • 105
    Great tooling
  • 86
    Immutable data structures
  • 81
    Open source
  • 77
    Pattern-matching
  • 62
    Easy to get started
  • 59
    Actor library
  • 32
    Functional with a neat syntax
  • 29
    Ruby inspired
  • 25
    Erlang evolved
  • 24
    Homoiconic
  • 22
    Beauty of Ruby, Speed of Erlang/C
  • 17
    Fault Tolerant
  • 14
    Simple
  • 13
    High Performance
  • 11
    Pipe Operator
  • 11
    Good lang
  • 11
    Doc as first class citizen
  • 9
    Stinkin' fast, no memory leaks, easy on the eyes
  • 9
    Fun to write
  • 8
    Resilient to failure
  • 8
    OTP
  • 6
    GenServer takes the guesswork out of background work
  • 4
    Not Swift
  • 4
    Pattern matching
  • 4
    Idempotence
  • 4
    Fast, Concurrent with clean error messages
  • 3
    Easy to use
  • 2
    Dynamic Typing
  • 2
    Error isolation
  • 45
    Code stays clean
  • 43
    Great type system
  • 40
    No Runtime Exceptions
  • 33
    Fun
  • 28
    Easy to understand
  • 23
    Type safety
  • 22
    Correctness
  • 17
    JS fatigue
  • 12
    Ecosystem agrees on one Application Architecture
  • 12
    Declarative
  • 10
    Friendly compiler messages
  • 8
    Fast rendering
  • 7
    If it compiles, it runs
  • 7
    Welcoming community
  • 5
    Stable ecosystem
  • 4
    'Batteries included'
  • 2
    Package.elm-lang.org

Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

Cons of Elixir
Cons of Elm
  • 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
  • 1
    Difficult to understand
  • 1
    Not a lot of learning books available
  • 3
    No typeclasses -> repitition (i.e. map has 130versions)
  • 2
    JS interop can not be async
  • 2
    JS interoperability a bit more involved
  • 1
    More code is required
  • 1
    No JSX/Template
  • 1
    Main developer enforces "the correct" style hard
  • 1
    No communication with users
  • 1
    Backwards compability breaks between releases

Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

- No public GitHub repository available -

What is Elixir?

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.

What is Elm?

Writing HTML apps is super easy with elm-lang/html. Not only does it render extremely fast, it also quietly guides you towards well-architected code.

Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

What companies use Elixir?
What companies use Elm?
See which teams inside your own company are using Elixir or Elm.
Sign up for StackShare EnterpriseLearn More

Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions

What tools integrate with Elixir?
What tools integrate with Elm?

Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions

Blog Posts

Oct 24 2019 at 7:43PM

AppSignal

JavaScriptNode.jsJava+8
5
947
What are some alternatives to Elixir and Elm?
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.
Erlang
Some of Erlang's uses are in telecoms, banking, e-commerce, computer telephony and instant messaging. Erlang's runtime system has built-in support for concurrency, distribution and fault tolerance. OTP is set of Erlang libraries and design principles providing middle-ware to develop these systems.
Clojure
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.
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.
Rust
Rust is a systems programming language that combines strong compile-time correctness guarantees with fast performance. It improves upon the ideas of other systems languages like C++ by providing guaranteed memory safety (no crashes, no data races) and complete control over the lifecycle of memory.
See all alternatives