ykostov

E-commerce in Elixir - pros and cons (vs Rails)

Hello devs!
I’m starting these day coding my own e-commerce platform, and so I have a few questions…
First of all, except the live-view, do Elixir have more pros (or cons)? The site will be used by approximate 5K per month (not sure at all) users, so is it good for this subject. As I have better knowledge in Rails, which lang is better for you? Are there any free open-sources in Phoenix (like Solidus and Spree in Rails)? Please, share your thoughts, I’d glad to view different opinions..

Best Regards,
YKostov

23 comments

/phoenix #e-commerce

45 7425 23

2023-06-23 11:29:59 UTC

Marked As Solved

joselo

In an old reply I mentioned that I’m building a kind of shopify clone for my country, well… after some months working this is the result. the work is still in progress, so the answer is yes, you can build a e-comerce app in phoenix elixir

My mix.exs updated

      {:phoenix, "~> 1.5.12"},
      {:phoenix_ecto, "~> 4.4.0"},
      {:ecto_sql, "~> 3.7.0"},
      {:postgrex, ">= 0.15.10"},
      # Needs to be updated to 3.0.0 but there are still conflicts with live_view
      {:phoenix_html, "~> 3.0.3"},
      {:phoenix_live_reload, "~> 1.3.3", only: :dev},
      {:telemetry_metrics, "~> 0.6.1"},
      {:telemetry_poller, "~> 0.4"},
      {:gettext, "~> 0.11"},
      {:jason, "~> 1.2.2"},
      {:plug_cowboy, "~> 2.5.1"},
      {:bcrypt_elixir, "~> 2.3.0"},
      {:ex_machina, "~> 2.7.0", only: :test},
      {:wallaby, "~> 0.28.1", runtime: false, only: :test},
      {:credo, "~> 1.5.6", only: [:dev, :test], runtime: false},
      {:git_hooks, "~> 0.6.3", only: [:test, :dev], runtime: false},
      {:phoenix_live_view, "~> 0.16.3"},
      {:floki, ">= 0.31.0"},
      {:cachex, "~> 3.4.0"},
      {:money, github: "elixirmoney/money", branch: "master"},
      {:liquex, "~> 0.6.1"},
      {:puid, "~> 1.0"},
      {:ecto_enum, "~> 1.4"},
      {:attrition, "~> 0.1.0"},
      {:poison, "~> 5.0.0"},
      {:struct_access, "~> 1.1"},
      {:bamboo, "~> 2.2.0"},
      {:bamboo_phoenix, "~> 1.0"},
      {:bamboo_ses, "~> 0.2.0"},
      {:timex, "~> 3.7.6"},
      {:oban, "~> 2.8.0"},
      {:mimic, "~> 1.5.0", only: :test},
      {:excoveralls, "~> 0.14.2", only: :test},
      {:httpoison, "~> 1.8"},
      {:slugify, "~> 1.3"},
      {:pdf, "~> 0.5.0"},
      {:elixir_xml_to_map, "~> 2.0"},
      {:barlix, "~> 0.6.1"},
      {:xml_builder, "~> 2.2"},
      {:mox, "~> 1.0", only: :test},
      {:premailex, "~> 0.3.13"},
      {:geocoder, "~> 1.1.3"}

Post #15

Also Liked

olivermt

I started as a CTO for www.amoi.no (and www.amoi.se) last wednesday and we’re an eCommerce using Elixir and liveview with sprinkles of Surface.

We’re pivoting to be a bit more api heavy, so most likely we will leave liveview out of it, but liveview was a great enabler to get the product off the ground quickly with a small and super senior / great team.

Not «eCommerce» in the traditional sense, as amoi is city-as-a-warehouse (for now) similar to what gojek etc do in asia, but we do logistics, payments and all that jazz.

Post #16

dimitarvp

LiveView is VERY FAR from being the biggest positive trait of Elixir.

Have you read on the OTP? The guarantees of a process being restarted if it crashes, for example?

Post #7

joselo

Hi I come from Rails and I’m building a kind of Shoppify clone with some custom things for my country, I’m convinced that Phoenix/Elixir was the right choice, It has every thing to create a E-Commerce site. I even had to create a electronic invoice using a P12 Certificate and I was able to do using erlang libraries (from elixir), Phoenix is amazing and with liveview complex interfaces was easy to do. An E-Commerce platform is a big thing you have orders, customers, inventories, shipping, etc. there are many things, but I feel that Phoenix/Liveview help a lot.

if it can help this is my current mix.ex

  defp deps do
    [
      {:phoenix, "~> 1.5.8"},
      {:phoenix_ecto, "~> 4.2.1"},
      {:ecto_sql, "~> 3.5.4"},
      {:postgrex, ">= 0.15.8"},
      {:phoenix_html, "~> 2.14.3"},
      {:phoenix_live_reload, "~> 1.3.0", only: :dev},
      {:phoenix_live_dashboard, "~> 0.4.0"},
      {:telemetry_metrics, "~> 0.6.0"},
      {:telemetry_poller, "~> 0.4"},
      {:gettext, "~> 0.11"},
      {:jason, "~> 1.2.2"},
      {:plug_cowboy, "~> 2.4.1"},
      {:bcrypt_elixir, "~> 2.3.0"},
      {:ex_machina, "~> 2.7.0", only: :test},
      {:wallaby, "~> 0.28.0", runtime: false, only: :test},
      {:credo, "~> 1.5.5", only: [:dev, :test], runtime: false},
      {:git_hooks, "~> 0.5.2", only: [:test, :dev], runtime: false},
      {:phoenix_live_view, "~> 0.15.4"},
      {:floki, ">= 0.30.0", only: :test},
      {:cachex, "~> 3.3"},
      {:money, "~> 1.8.0"},
      {:liquex, "~> 0.5.0"},
      {:puid, "~> 1.0"},
      {:ecto_enum, "~> 1.4"},
      {:attrition, "~> 0.1.0"},
      {:poison, "~> 4.0"},
      {:geocoder, "~> 1.1.0"},
      {:countries, "~> 1.5"},
      {:mox, "~> 1.0", only: :test},
      {:struct_access, "~> 1.1"},
      {:bamboo, "~> 2.0.1"},
      {:bamboo_phoenix, "~> 1.0"},
      {:bamboo_ses, "~> 0.2.0"},
      {:grpc, "~> 0.3.1"},
      {:cowlib, "~> 2.8.1", hex: :grpc_cowlib, override: true},
      {:timex, "~> 3.7.3"},
      {:oban, "~> 2.5"},
      {:mimic, "~> 1.4", only: :test},
      {:excoveralls, "~> 0.14", only: :test},
      {:httpoison, "~> 1.8"}
    ]
  end

One of my favorite lib is liquex Liquex — liquex v0.15.1 you can use liquid lang for your templates.

Regards!

Post #14