StackShareStackShare
Follow on
StackShare

Discover and share technology stacks from companies around the world.

Follow on

© 2025 StackShare. All rights reserved.

Product

  • Stacks
  • Tools
  • Feed

Company

  • About
  • Contact

Legal

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Frameworks
  4. Frameworks
  5. Phoenix Framework vs Play

Phoenix Framework vs Play

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Play
Play
Stacks752
Followers609
Votes496
GitHub Stars12.6K
Forks4.1K
Phoenix Framework
Phoenix Framework
Stacks1.0K
Followers1.0K
Votes678
GitHub Stars22.6K
Forks3.0K

Phoenix Framework vs Play: What are the differences?

<Introduction: The Phoenix Framework and Play are both popular web application frameworks used in building scalable and robust applications. Here are the key differences between the two.>

  1. Language Support: Phoenix Framework is built using Elixir, a functional programming language that runs on the Erlang VM, while Play Framework is based on Java and Scala. This difference in language support influences the way developers write code, handle concurrency, and manage scalability in their applications.

  2. Concurrency Model: Phoenix Framework leverages the Erlang/OTP model that provides lightweight processes and actor-based concurrency, enabling efficient handling of concurrent requests. In contrast, Play Framework relies on the Akka toolkit for implementing a similar actor-based model, but developers need to write additional code for handling concurrency compared to Phoenix.

  3. Database Integration: Phoenix Framework uses Ecto as its default database library, which offers a powerful query interface and seamless integration with various databases. On the other hand, Play Framework provides support for multiple databases through its built-in Slick library, allowing developers to work with relational databases more conveniently.

  4. Routing System: Phoenix Framework follows a RESTful routing approach, making it easy to define routes and actions for different HTTP methods. In contrast, Play Framework uses a more traditional HTTP routing system that requires defining routes explicitly, sometimes making it more verbose than the Phoenix approach.

  5. Template Engine: Phoenix Framework utilizes the EEx templating engine for generating dynamic HTML content, offering a familiar experience for developers coming from Ruby on Rails. Play Framework, on the other hand, uses Twirl as its default template engine, which is more type-safe and integrates well with Scala's static typing system.

  6. Community and Ecosystem: Phoenix Framework has a smaller but growing community compared to Play Framework, which has a larger user base and extensive ecosystem with various plugins, libraries, and tools. The choice between these frameworks may also depend on the availability of resources and community support for developers.

In Summary, the Phoenix Framework and Play differ in language support, concurrency model, database integration, routing system, template engine, and community size, all influencing the development experience and scalability of web applications using these frameworks.

Share your Stack

Help developers discover the tools you use. Get visibility for your team's tech choices and contribute to the community's knowledge.

View Docs
CLI (Node.js)
or
Manual

Advice on Play, Phoenix Framework

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
Leonardo
Leonardo

Project manager and web developer at Revo Digital

Mar 22, 2021

Needs adviceonTypeScriptTypeScriptRailsRailsScalaScala

In the past few months, a project we're working on grew up quite fast. Since we're adding more and more features, I'm considering migrating my Express/TS REST API towards a more solid and more "enterprise-like" framework. Since I am experienced with TypeScript but not so much with Rails nor Play (Scala), I'd like to have some advice on which one could provide the best development experience, and most importantly, the smoothest paradigm transition from the JS/TS world. I've worked on some personal project with Rails, but I've found the Ruby language really distant from what the TypeScript ecosystem and syntax are, whereas on the opposite - during the brief tours I've taken in the past weeks - it's been a pleasure coding in Scala. Obviously, there are some key differences between the two languages - and the two frameworks consequently - but despite all the ROR automation and ease of use I don't despise at all Scala's pragmatic and great features such as static typing, pattern matching, and type inference. So... Please help me out with the choice! Regards

2.74M views2.74M
Comments
Hosam
Hosam

Senior Software Engineer

Apr 18, 2021

Review

If software performance is your top priority, then Scala/Play is probably best. If developer productivity is your top priority, then Ruby on Rails is the best choice in my opinion.

The Rails framework is batteries-included. The framework takes care of many things by default so that you don't have to. Logging, security, etc. It's also well-integrated; for example, controllers understand models out of the box. I had a better experience with RoR than with Play.

On the other hand, Scala and the JVM are more performant in general, so they can scale to serve more requests per second on the same hardware.

If you're considering serverless functions, then Scala is probably a better choice because it would be faster to load, giving you better economics.

53.4k views53.4k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Play
Play
Phoenix Framework
Phoenix Framework

Play Framework makes it easy to build web applications with Java & Scala. Play is based on a lightweight, stateless, web-friendly architecture. Built on Akka, Play provides predictable and minimal resource consumption (CPU, memory, threads) for highly-scalable applications.

Phoenix is a framework for building HTML5 apps, API backends and distributed systems. Written in Elixir, you get beautiful syntax, productive tooling and a fast runtime.

Statistics
GitHub Stars
12.6K
GitHub Stars
22.6K
GitHub Forks
4.1K
GitHub Forks
3.0K
Stacks
752
Stacks
1.0K
Followers
609
Followers
1.0K
Votes
496
Votes
678
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 81
    Scala
  • 55
    Web-friendly architecture
  • 55
    Built on akka
  • 50
    Stateless
  • 47
    High-scalable
Cons
  • 3
    Evolves fast, keep up with releases
  • 1
    Unnecessarily complicated
Pros
  • 120
    High performance
  • 76
    Super fast
  • 70
    Rapid development
  • 62
    Open source
  • 60
    Erlang VM
Cons
  • 6
    No jobs
  • 5
    Very difficult
Integrations
No integrations available
Elixir
Elixir

What are some alternatives to Play, Phoenix Framework?

Node.js

Node.js

Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices.

Rails

Rails

Rails is a web-application framework that includes everything needed to create database-backed web applications according to the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern.

Django

Django

Django is a high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design.

Laravel

Laravel

It is a web application framework with expressive, elegant syntax. It attempts to take the pain out of development by easing common tasks used in the majority of web projects, such as authentication, routing, sessions, and caching.

.NET

.NET

.NET is a general purpose development platform. With .NET, you can use multiple languages, editors, and libraries to build native applications for web, mobile, desktop, gaming, and IoT for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and more.

ASP.NET Core

ASP.NET Core

A free and open-source web framework, and higher performance than ASP.NET, developed by Microsoft and the community. It is a modular framework that runs on both the full .NET Framework, on Windows, and the cross-platform .NET Core.

Symfony

Symfony

It is written with speed and flexibility in mind. It allows developers to build better and easy to maintain websites with PHP..

Spring

Spring

A key element of Spring is infrastructural support at the application level: Spring focuses on the "plumbing" of enterprise applications so that teams can focus on application-level business logic, without unnecessary ties to specific deployment environments.

Spring Boot

Spring Boot

Spring Boot makes it easy to create stand-alone, production-grade Spring based Applications that you can "just run". We take an opinionated view of the Spring platform and third-party libraries so you can get started with minimum fuss. Most Spring Boot applications need very little Spring configuration.

Android SDK

Android SDK

Android provides a rich application framework that allows you to build innovative apps and games for mobile devices in a Java language environment.

Related Comparisons

Bootstrap
Materialize

Bootstrap vs Materialize

Laravel
Django

Django vs Laravel vs Node.js

Bootstrap
Foundation

Bootstrap vs Foundation vs Material UI

Node.js
Spring Boot

Node.js vs Spring-Boot

Liquibase
Flyway

Flyway vs Liquibase