Elixir
A dynamic, functional programming language that runs on the Erlang VM for scalable, maintainable applications.
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2 more ways to get Elixir
Package managers
- Chocolatey
choco install elixir - Homebrew
brew install elixir
About Elixir
Elixir is a functional language built on the Erlang virtual machine, inheriting its long record of reliability and fault tolerance. Immutable data, memory safety and a gradual type system help keep code clear and help systems recover from failures.
A single codebase can scale across CPU cores and across networked nodes, which suits message-oriented and real-time web systems. The wider ecosystem includes the Phoenix LiveView web framework, the Ecto database toolkit and Numerical Elixir for work on GPUs. Version 1.20 was released in June 2026.
Strengths
- Runs on the fault-tolerant Erlang VM
- Scales across cores and across cluster nodes
- Gradual type system alongside immutable data
- Established ecosystem including Phoenix and Ecto
Limitations
- Functional style takes adjustment for developers used to object-oriented languages
- Smaller library ecosystem than mainstream languages
Details
- Pricing
- FreeFree and open source.
- License
- Open source, license not stated
- Developer
- The Elixir contributors
- Platforms
- Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line
- How it runs
- Downloadable app
- Account
- Not required
- Works offline
- Yes
- Best suited for
- Developers building concurrent, real-time or fault-tolerant back-end systems
- Categories
- Developer tools
- Last verified
- Added
- Provenance
- Facts checked against the developer's own pages and store listings, 1 sources on file.
Alternatives to Elixir
Compare allSoftware that can replace Elixir for an important use case, and what changes if you switch.
Erlang/OTP
The Erlang programming language and OTP runtime for building concurrent, fault-tolerant distributed systems.
Erlang/OTP is the underlying language and runtime for the same BEAM VM, offering the OTP fault-tolerance model with an older, less familiar syntax than Elixir.
Gleam
A type-safe functional programming language that runs on the Erlang VM and JavaScript runtimes.
Gleam also runs on the Erlang VM but adds static types and can target JavaScript, with a younger, smaller community than Elixir.
Elixir as an alternative
Listings that name Elixir as an alternative.
OCaml
A functional programming language with a strong static type system and a native-code compiler.
Elixir is a functional language on the Erlang VM with a gradual type system rather than OCaml's strict static typing, suited to concurrent back-end systems.
Ruby
A dynamic, open-source programming language focused on simplicity and programmer productivity.
Elixir is a functional language on the fault-tolerant Erlang VM suited to concurrent back ends, which takes adjustment for developers used to Ruby's object-oriented style.
Similar software
Related functionality, not necessarily a direct replacement.
Go
An open-source compiled programming language from Google with built-in concurrency and a module system.
Scala
A programming language that combines object-oriented and functional programming, targeting the JVM and web.
Rust
A compiled systems programming language with no garbage collector, installed through the rustup toolchain manager.
Python
A general-purpose programming language used for scripting, web backends, data analysis and machine learning.
