zivanovicb1
Hello people!
I’m reading everywhere how Facebook, WhatsApp, and Discord used Erlang to build their “chat server” and achieve high scalability and concurrency. I’m interested to hear what are some common properties of each chat server, what tasks it performs in general. I’ll need to add room chat to my existing web app written in node/express/mongo/react, and I’m considering elixir to handle my chat app.
Thanks!
Where Next?
Trending in Questions
Other Trending Topics
Latest Phoenix Threads
Latest on Elixir Forum
Sponsor Spotlight
Master modern tools, write cleaner code, and tackle real-world challenges with Manning books, videos, and courses. Start building today.
Categories:
Sub Categories:
Forums
Popular Tags
- #ecto
- #liveview
- #troubleshooting
- #learning-elixir
- #library
- #deployment
- #erlang
- #testing
- #genserver
- #mix
- #absinthe
- #remote-other
- #otp
- #plug
- #how-to-question
- #macros
- #postgres
- #elixirconf
- #channels
- #exunit
- #discussion
- #code-sync
- #podcasts
- #javascript
- #onsite
- #dialyzer
- #docker
- #authentication
- #umbrella
- #full-time-contract
- #podcasts-by-brainlid
- #ecto-query
- #elixirconf-us
- #ai
- #blog-post
- #elixir-ls
- #phoenix_html
- #iex
- #graphql
- #genstage
- #websockets
- #supervisor
- #advent-of-code
- #distillery
- #processes
- #api
- #forms
- #hex
- #security
- #metaprogramming
Our Sponsors
Build Elixir applications with speed and confidence.
Supporting innovation across the BEAM ecosystem.
Catch errors, track performance, monitor hosts and more.
Error tracking, logs, uptime, and Just Enough APM. Built for developers.
Elixir, Erlang & BEAM conferences from Code Sync - join us in 2026!
Practical resources that improve the lives of professional developers.
**Building the future of software with AI, trust, and human connection.**
The deployment platform built for Elixir: PaaS ease, VPS control.
The team behind Membrane, Popcorn, LiveDebugger. Available for hire.
Courses that'll move you from confusion to "Aha, now I get it!"
Showing Posts 1 to 2- Show Best Posts
- Show All (oldest first)
- Show All (newest first)
outlog
node isn’t totally stupid for chat/websocket so consider staying with that - unless you tell me you also plan to move everything to elixir/phoenix and get rid of node long run, you need the unique Presence feature, or that the chat will be massive scale and you think node will fall short on that account..
that said, have or add some kind of auth token in your react frontend that you then connect to the phoenix server with, join a channel aka room and message away..
examples go from simple to slack clone advanced:
https://blog.diacode.com/building-a-simple-chat-using-phoenix-framework-presence-and-react
https://medium.com/@benhansen/lets-build-a-slack-clone-with-elixir-phoenix-and-react-part-1-project-setup-3252ae780a1
zivanovicb1
I’ll give it a shot. Thanks!