With so many alternatives on the market, you may be unsure whether Elixir is the right choice for your product. We’re here to dispel your doubts. As experts with over 6 years of experience in exploring this great technology, we prepared for you the guide of everything you need to know before you choose Elixir development.
More than 10 years of Elixir development
Elixir was developed back in 2011, so recently it has hit 10 years on the market. Why was it developed and how has it evolved in the past decades?
First of all, Elixir was built as a concurrent and productive programming language. Although it’s still relatively a novelty, it has already been successfully used in many industries:
- banking
- advertising
- telecoms
- e-commerce
and more. Thanks to a number of successful implementations, it's been gaining popularity as a reliable language perfect for microservices, cloud computing, Blockchain products, embedded systems and instant messaging or video chats.
If the success stories behind 10 top companies using Elixir that we have presented lately are not enough to convince you that Elixir development is worth your effort, take a look at some data. According to Stack Overflow Developer Survey, Elixir is the 4th most loved language in 2021.
Elixir language has already gathered a strong community. There are also Elixir-dedicated events such as ElixirConf and ElixirConf EU being held every year, and it was a great pleasure for us to appear as experts and speakers back in 2018 and 2019.
What makes the Elixir programming language so special? If you reach out to a developer, they would most probably mention that:
- It's a productive technology ensuring a great and fast scalability
- It provides a number of great frameworks, libraries and tools helpful in the product-building process and adding new features
- The coding process is fast, smooth and joyful
- Elixir community is supportive and still growing.
Kamil Pikula, one of our Elixir developers says:
I think we love Elixir because it makes building apps very easy without writing a huge amount of code. Elixir is also stable and every update brings new relevant improvements and solutions to the previously detected problems. On the other hand, it’s also predictable. Moreover, Elixir is based on Erlang, which supports a big share of the world's telecommunication services, so reliability and fault tolerance are other big advantages.
Kamil Pikula, Elixir Developer
However, let’s also take a look at the business benefits of Elixir development.
Concurrency
Concurrency in software development is nothing but the ability to run multiple processes simultaneously and independently. This is of top importance in the products and apps which are supposed to process huge amounts of data in real-time. Elixir language ensures a smooth and undisturbed workflow even with significant traffic and makes an app able to process even millions of requests, more than any other available programming language.
Scalability
Elixir development ensures great and fast scalability. This is why it is the right choice for products that are expected to handle increasing traffic in the future. Such technology makes the company prepared for future growth without the need for extra costs or purchasing additional servers.
What can you tell from business point of view about this benefit of Elixir?
Each aspiring startup exists in the reality of an everlasting pursuit of a viable business model, looking for investors and survival in a competitive market. That’s a lot of things to focus on. In such rough conditions it’s good to have solid foundations. Elixir, due to its amazing scalability, is able to provide a longer runway for a growing product, which can determine whether the business behind it will succeed or fail.
Damian Romanów, Head of Engineering
Maintainability and easy development
Elixir is undoubtedly a great choice for those who want a fast development process, easy bug fixing and convenience in use. As a stable and functional programming language, it allows cheap and efficient maintenance without investments in highly qualified developers and software upgrades.
Speed
When it comes to Elixir vs Ruby, Elixir and Phoenix are faster than their main alternative. Speed, response time and performance are simply impressive, which is why programmers are able to learn it fast. Furthermore, Elixir code is clean and understandable thanks to a modern syntax, and also structured in functions and modules instead of the more complicated objects and classes. This makes the efficiency of an overall programming process marvelous.
Fault tolerance
The next advantage of Elixir is that it provides a range of built-in safety mechanisms and measures. The high fault-tolerance makes Elixir-powered apps work correctly even when the alert occurs. Combined with a smooth bug-fixing process, developers can immediately address problems and ensure an undisturbed flow.
Applicability
Elixir programming language is not dedicated to any specific niche and can be utilized for a number of projects. Thanks to its wide applicability, it can be successfully used to build functional solutions for any kind of industry.
Availability of frameworks
Furthermore, Elixir development is supported with a number of additional architectures, frameworks and services. A few of them are:
- Phoenix
- Ecto
- ExUnit
- Mox
- Exq
Their presence and functionality boost the productivity and utility of the Elixir language even more.
Continuous development
Last but not least, Elixir is constantly being developed and upgraded with new features. For example, it is now possible to develop a front-end in Elixir and Phoenix. Lately, they have also introduced Elixir LiveView, which helps developers to save time by eliminating communication via API. So once you choose Elixir for your product, you can be sure that the technology will not get outdated soon.
Of course, using Elixir is not only about pros. One of the cons is the low availability of Elixir developers. This makes engineering managers reluctant to get started with this technology. However, isn’t it only a bias? Elixir has been evolving on the market for many years, gained a strong and loyal community and attracted developers aspiring to learn it. With the demand much lower than for architects specialized in more popular languages, finding a qualified Elixir developer should not be a big deal. It’s worth adding that the Elixir programming language is also easy to learn, especially for Ruby developers, so the lacking competencies can be easily made up for.
Elixir development for business
How can Elixir improve your business? Would it be the right fit for your product? Obviously, as a decision-maker, you shouldn’t base your choices only on the trend but on careful analysis of your real needs and use cases. Let’s see which kind of products Elixir can help with.
Elixir might be the best choice (both strategically and financially) for projects and applications of various sets of features and complexity. Elixir is great for all products that are intended to:
- Handle big traffic
- Scale
- Process big amounts of data
- Provide easy development and maintenance.
Elixir is an ideal language for bootstrapping products and developing codebases as your requirements grow. It is 30 years of experience wrapped in a modern language that allows you to build scalable services to host millions of users. The environment was created with growth in mind, so it’s doesn’t stop you with technological debt as your codebase grow.
Karol Wojtaszek, CEO Appunite
To read more about Karol’s insights about Elixir development, check out his article: How your business can benefit from using Elixir and Phoenix.
So, Elixir will be perfect for all products based on growing a community, chatting, video chatting and exchanging real-time messages, and requests even by millions of users simultaneously. The examples of companies taking advantage of Elixir are worldwide-known Discord or Pinterest.
Still not sure about Elixir benefits? Again, check out the success stories of top 10 companies using Elixir that we shared recently and learn how this technology contributed to the growth of market leaders.
Join the Elixir community
Do you have any questions about Elixir development? Feel free to contact us. As industry experts with more than 6 years of experience in exploring this technology, we will be happy to provide you with more information on opportunities and challenges.
Did you find the article interesting and helpful? Take a look at our Elixir page to find out more!
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