Could Telegram, Whatsapp or FB run using Elixir?

Hi John - Can you clarify which you think would be better to use when you say “you should probably pick elixir by default” and “it might make sense to pick Erlang by default”. Don’t worry about hurting feelings. I am interested in the raw truth of which would be best in this use case.

It’s the same, but not with the same abstraction, and not the same syntax, but with the same BEAM and bytecode.

For apps and internal / closed-source libraries.

For open-source libraries – if you want all BEAM languages (Erlang, Elixir, LFE, Alpaca etc.) to have access to it.

This question is for a project that is not open source.

Messaging services is in the BEAMs sweetspot and I am pretty sure it would do well compared to any other language.

Whatsapp is famously known for running a global service with relatively few engineers and servers. They claim erlang is a big part of their success. In terms of erlang vs elixir I don’t see any difference in performance at this level.

I’m from Ecuador. In 2010-2011, in about three months, everyone got the urge to acquire an smartphone, mostly because everyone else was using Whatsapp. After getting to know Elixir, many years later, I finally understood it wasn’t because having Whatsapp meant “free messages” or because you’d get a touch screen; this sudden phenomena happened simply because Whatsapp never broke. You could lose your connection, but you’d get your messages back; a single conversation could misfire, but “the system” was always on; it didn’t matter if you were 4000 mts high or in a little village in the jungle: you could rely on it. You could rely on it more than in SMSs. This same thing happened worldwide. There were obviously brilliant people involved, but I do believe a lot of Whatsapp’s success is due to Erlang.

(I assume both references pop up frequently, but they’re quite interesting anyway)

Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users

Erlang Factory 2014 - That’s ‘Billion’ with a ‘B’: Scaling to the Next Level at WhatsApp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c12cYAUTXXs

fb is a different thing and I personally think we shouldn’t try to repeat in any language

As for this

you should probably pick elixir by default

I don’t program Elixir professionally but I would choose Elixir just because of these

• Elixir has powerful macro system that Erlang doesn’t have and it can really make a difference.
• It’s easy to call Erlang libraries from Elixir but not as easy other way around. (There might be some new developments in this area that I don’t know of)
• Elixir is more popular than Erlang so it’s easier to find solutions when problems arise.
• This is bit personal but Erlang is bit off putting because it looks so different from most other programming language that are popular now. For me it was just so much easier to learn Elixir because it is so much more readable. I think this will help a lot when hiring new people.
• Bit personal as well but I really like that Elixir has variable rebinding.

Erlang has macro system too, but different.

The |> pipe operator is also a nice addition from Elixir

As I said in my last post, for a commercial project elixir makes the most sense as you can use the widest variety of libraries. For an open source project Erlang makes the most sense as you can be used by the widest variety of users.