Elm vs Erlang: What are the differences?

1. Syntax: Elm has a more straightforward and simple syntax compared to Erlang, making it easier for beginners to pick up and learn quickly. Erlang, on the other hand, has a syntax that is more specific to functional programming languages, which might be challenging for newcomers.

2. Platform: Elm is mainly used for front-end web development, focusing on creating user interfaces, while Erlang is typically used for building distributed systems and telecommunications infrastructure due to its fault-tolerant and scalable nature.

3. Concurrency Model: Erlang is known for its lightweight concurrency model through processes and actors, making it easier to handle massive amounts of concurrent users or tasks efficiently. Elm, on the other hand, focuses more on immutable data structures and functional purity rather than explicit concurrency primitives.

4. Type System: Elm has a strong static type system with type inference, ensuring fewer runtime errors and more predictable behavior in a codebase. In contrast, Erlang has a dynamic type system, which can lead to errors only being discovered during runtime execution.

5. Community Support: Elm has a smaller but dedicated community that focuses on front-end development and maintains a curated list of libraries and tools. On the other hand, Erlang has a larger and more established community due to its longevity and usage in critical systems, providing a wide range of libraries and resources for various applications.

6. Tooling: Elm has a powerful compiler and tooling ecosystem that enforces best practices and helps developers catch errors early in the development process. Erlang, while also having robust tooling, is more focused on system-level tools for building and monitoring distributed applications.

In Summary, Elm and Erlang differ in syntax simplicity, platform focus, concurrency model, type system, community support, and tooling ecosystem.