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Elixir VS Haskell

Compare Elixir VS Haskell and see what are their differences

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Elixir logo Elixir

Dynamic, functional language designed for building scalable and maintainable applications

Haskell logo Haskell

An advanced purely-functional programming language
  • Elixir Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-07-20

We recommend LibHunt Elixir for discovery and comparisons of trending Elixir projects.

  • Haskell Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-01

We recommend LibHunt Haskell for discovery and comparisons of trending Haskell projects.

Elixir features and specs

  • Concurrency
    Elixir leverages the Erlang VM (BEAM) for exceptional concurrency support, making it suitable for scalable and fault-tolerant applications.
  • Fault Tolerance
    Built-in supervision trees in Elixir allow for robust fault tolerance, enabling applications to recover gracefully from errors.
  • Performance
    Elixir boasts impressive performance characteristics, especially for I/O-bound operations, thanks to its efficient concurrency model.
  • Ecosystem
    Elixir’s ecosystem, including the Phoenix framework, provides a rich set of libraries and tools for web development and more.
  • Syntax
    Elixir’s syntax is clean and modern, making it more approachable for developers coming from Ruby or other high-level languages.
  • Metaprogramming
    Elixir supports powerful metaprogramming capabilities, enabling DSLs and macros to add custom functionalities in a seamless manner.
  • Scalability
    Elixir applications can scale vertically and horizontally with ease, making it a good choice for growing applications that need to handle increased load.

Possible disadvantages of Elixir

  • Learning Curve
    Despite its approachable syntax, Elixir’s concurrency and fault-tolerant models can be challenging for developers to master.
  • Ecosystem Maturity
    While growing, the Elixir ecosystem isn’t as mature or extensive as that of languages like Python or JavaScript, which might limit available libraries or community support.
  • Tooling
    The tooling around Elixir, while adequate, may not be as polished or feature-rich as in more established languages.
  • Performance
    Although strong in handling concurrent operations, Elixir may not outperform languages like C++ or Go in CPU-bound tasks.
  • Hiring
    Finding experienced Elixir developers can be difficult compared to more prevalent languages like JavaScript or Python, potentially limiting hiring pools.
  • Resource Usage
    Applications built with Elixir can consume more memory compared to applications written in more low-level languages.
  • Framework Dependency
    Reliance on the Phoenix framework means that projects are often tightly coupled to it, which might limit flexibility.

Haskell features and specs

  • Pure Functional Programming
    Haskell emphasizes pure functional programming, meaning functions have no side effects. This leads to code that is easier to understand, test, and maintain.
  • Strong Type System
    Haskell's type system is strong and expressive, allowing developers to catch many errors at compile time. This results in more reliable code.
  • Lazy Evaluation
    Haskell uses lazy evaluation by default, which can lead to performance improvements by avoiding unnecessary computations and enabling the creation of infinite data structures.
  • Immutability
    In Haskell, data is immutable by default. This leads to simpler reasoning about code behavior and reduces bugs related to mutable state.
  • High-Level Abstractions
    Haskell provides powerful abstractions like monads, functors, and applicative functors, which can lead to more concise and expressive code.
  • Concurrency
    Haskell has excellent support for concurrency and parallelism through its lightweight threading model and software transactional memory, making it suitable for concurrent applications.
  • Community and Libraries
    Haskell has a dedicated community and a rich set of libraries and tools, which can help accelerate development and provide solutions to common problems.

Possible disadvantages of Haskell

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Haskell has a steep learning curve, particularly for developers who are new to functional programming or coming from imperative and object-oriented backgrounds.
  • Performance Concerns
    While Haskell can be efficient, its performance can sometimes lag behind other languages like C++ or Rust for certain use cases, especially those requiring low-level optimization.
  • Limited Industry Adoption
    Haskell is not as widely adopted in industry compared to languages like Java, Python, or JavaScript, which can limit job opportunities and community size.
  • Compilation Times
    Haskell's compilation times can be long, especially for large projects, which can slow down the development process.
  • Tooling and IDE Support
    While improving, the tooling and IDE support for Haskell is not as mature as for some other popular languages, potentially affecting developer productivity.
  • Complexity of Advanced Features
    Some of Haskell's advanced features, such as monads and type-level programming, can be complex and difficult to master, which can be a barrier for new developers.
  • Library Gaps
    Although Haskell has many libraries, there might be gaps or less mature libraries for some specific use cases compared to more mainstream languages.

Analysis of Elixir

Overall verdict

  • Elixir is a powerful and efficient programming language, particularly well-suited for applications that require high concurrency and fault tolerance. Its growing ecosystem and supportive community further add to its appeal.

Why this product is good

  • Community
    The Elixir community is active and vibrant, providing extensive resources, guides, and a welcoming environment for developers.
  • Ecosystem
    Elixir has a growing ecosystem with powerful tools and libraries like Phoenix for web development, offering high performance and productivity.
  • Concurrency
    Elixir is known for its excellent support for concurrent programming, leveraging the Erlang VM (BEAM) to easily handle many processes simultaneously, making it ideal for scalable applications.
  • Fault tolerance
    It inherits Erlang's robust supervision strategies, allowing developers to build systems that can gracefully handle failures and continue running.
  • Functional programming
    Elixir is a functional programming language, which promotes immutability and first-class functions, leading to clear and maintainable code.

Recommended for

  • Developers building distributed systems or applications requiring high concurrency.
  • Companies looking for scalable and fault-tolerant backend solutions.
  • Teams interested in functional programming languages.
  • Web developers seeking a performant, modern framework like Phoenix.

Analysis of Haskell

Overall verdict

  • Haskell is good for certain types of projects and developers, especially those interested in functional programming and academic exploration. It may not be the best choice for every use case, particularly where performance-critical applications or system-level programming is required, due to its steep learning curve and relatively smaller community compared to more mainstream languages.

Why this product is good

  • Haskell is a purely functional programming language known for its high level of abstraction, robust type system, and lazy evaluation. These features make Haskell an excellent choice for academic research, complex algorithm design, and scenarios where concise and maintainable code is paramount. It encourages a different way of thinking about programming problems, which can lead to more elegant and robust solutions.

Recommended for

  • Developers interested in functional programming paradigms
  • Projects focused on academic research or algorithm development
  • Software requiring high-level abstractions and strong type safety
  • Enthusiasts wishing to learn a different approach to thinking about software design

Elixir videos

+ Add

Product Review: Elixir - Finally, something good?

More videos:

  • Review - REVIEW SENAR GITAR AKUSTIK TERMAHAL (ELIXIR NANOWEB PHOSPOR BRONZE) ORIGINAL
  • Review - As Seen on IG | Episode 1 | KO Elixir Cream | One Month Update | Product Review

Haskell videos

+ Add

Functional Programming & Haskell - Computerphile

More videos:

  • Review - Marloe Haskell Review
  • Review - Marloe Watch Company - Haskell - Watch Review

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Elixir and Haskell)

Elixir

Haskell

Programming Language
64 64%
Programming Language
36% 36
OOP
65 65%
OOP
35% 35
Generic Programming Language
56 56%
Generic Programming Language
44% 44
Programming
100 100%
Programming
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Elixir and Haskell

Elixir Reviews

Top 10 Rust Alternatives
Elixir is a functional and all-purpose programming language. It is believed to operate on BEAM and uses the imposition of a programming language known as Erlang. This language is typed dynamically and strongly.
Source: blog.back4app.com

Haskell Reviews

We have no reviews of Haskell yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Elixir should be more popular than Haskell. It has been mentiond 84 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Elixir mentions (84)

  • Invisible Threads: Group email without the exposure
    Invisible Threads is built with Elixir, Phoenix, and most importantly, Postmark. Data lives on disk instead of a traditional database to keep the demo light. Authentication uses Postmark API tokens, mapping each application user directly to a Postmark server. The whole thing is deployed to Fly.io. A minimal setup let me focus on Postmark's offerings. - Source: dev.to / 10 days ago
  • Contributing to Elixir Documentation: A Step-by-Step Guide
    Elixir is a functional, concurrent, and dynamically typed language built on top of the Erlang VM. Since its release in 2012, Elixir has gained popularity due to its friendly syntax, scalability, and fault tolerance. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Exploring elixir processes using merge sort
    Elixir runs on the Erlang VM, known for creating low latency, distributed, and fault-tolerant systems. Elixir Docs. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Building a Simple REST API with Elixir
    This guide will walk you through creating a basic REST API using Elixir and Phoenix Framework with thorough comments explaining each piece of code. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • An overview of Elixir from C# developer
    Recently, I discovered a programming language called Elixir. Elixir is described as a dynamic, functional language for building scalable and maintainable applications. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
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Haskell mentions (21)

  • Is there a programming language that will blow my mind?
    Haskell - a general-purpose functional language with many unique properties (purely functional, lazy, expressive types, STM, etc). You mentioned you dabbled in Haskell, why not try it again? (I've written about 7 things I learned from Haskell, and my book is linked at them bottom if you're interested :) ). Source: about 2 years ago
  • Where to go from here?
    Where you go is entirely up to you. According to haskell.org, Haskell jobs are a-plenty. sigh. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Haskell.org now has "Get Started" page!
    Should they be part of haskell.org or something else? Source: over 2 years ago
  • Haskell.org now has "Get Started" page!
    Haskell.org now has a big purple Get Started button that takes you to a nice short guide (haskell.org/get-started) that quickly provides all the basic info to get going with Haskell. It is aimed for beginners, to reduce choice fatigue and to give them a clear, official path to get going. Source: over 2 years ago
  • dev environment for windows
    I just jumped into the wiki "Write Yourself a Scheme in 48 hours" which looks pretty good. (although some of the text explanation is hard to understand without context).. I used cabal to set up the starter project. Sublime editor seems to work OK and I just use the git Bash shell on windows to compile the program directly on the command line. So maybe this is all good enough for now (?). It seems installing... Source: over 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Elixir and Haskell, you can also consider the following products

Rust - A safe, concurrent, practical language

Python - Python is a clear and powerful object-oriented programming language, comparable to Perl, Ruby, Scheme, or Java.

Clojure - Clojure is a dynamic, general-purpose programming language, combining the approachability and interactive development of a scripting language with an efficient and robust infrastructure for multithreaded programming.

JavaScript - Lightweight, interpreted, object-oriented language with first-class functions

NIM - GB64.COM is the home of The Gamebase Collection of C64 games.

Java - A concurrent, class-based, object-oriented, language specifically designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible

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