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Clojure vs Erlang: What are the differences?
What is Clojure? A dynamic programming language that targets the Java Virtual Machine. Clojure is designed to be a general-purpose language, combining the approachability and interactive development of a scripting language with an efficient and robust infrastructure for multithreaded programming. Clojure is a compiled language - it compiles directly to JVM bytecode, yet remains completely dynamic. Clojure is a dialect of Lisp, and shares with Lisp the code-as-data philosophy and a powerful macro system.
What is Erlang? A programming language used to build massively scalable soft real-time systems with requirements on high availability. Some of Erlang's uses are in telecoms, banking, e-commerce, computer telephony and instant messaging. Erlang's runtime system has built-in support for concurrency, distribution and fault tolerance. OTP is set of Erlang libraries and design principles providing middle-ware to develop these systems.
Clojure and Erlang belong to "Languages" category of the tech stack.
"It is a lisp" is the top reason why over 96 developers like Clojure, while over 49 developers mention "Real time, distributed applications" as the leading cause for choosing Erlang.
Clojure and Erlang are both open source tools. Clojure with 7.85K GitHub stars and 1.25K forks on GitHub appears to be more popular than Erlang with 7.74K GitHub stars and 2.1K GitHub forks.
CircleCI, Groupon, and Soundcloud are some of the popular companies that use Clojure, whereas Erlang is used by AdRoll, Grooveshark, and Heroku. Clojure has a broader approval, being mentioned in 95 company stacks & 80 developers stacks; compared to Erlang, which is listed in 70 company stacks and 47 developer stacks.
Basically, I am looking for a good language that compiles to Java and JavaScript(and can use their libraries/frameworks). These JVM languages seem good to me, but I have no interest in Android. Which programming language is the best of these? I am looking for one with high money and something functional.
Edit: Kotlin was originally on this list but I removed it since I had no interest in Android
ScalaClojure is a Lisp dialect, so if you like Lisp that's probably the way to go. Scala is more popular and broadly used, and has a larger job market especially for data engineering. Both are functional but Scala is more interoperable with Java libraries, probably a big factor in its popularity. I prefer Scala for a number of reasons, but in terms of jobs Scala is the clear leader.
ScalaScala has more momentum. It is good for back-end programming. The popular big data framework Spark is written in Scala. Spark is a marketable skill.
If you need to program something very dynamic like old school A.I., Clojure is attractive. You would chose Scala if prefer a statically typed language, and Clojure if you prefer a dynamically typed language.
It's not clear exactly what you mean by "high money", you mean financial support to the language, money paid for a job, economic health of the market the language is positioned on?
In any case, it's very hard to give any advice here, since you'd need to provide details on the intended usage, what sector, kind of product/service, team size, potential customer type... Both languages are very general purpose and decently supported, each have its own pros and cons, both are functional as approach, and neither is really mainstream.
We’re a new startup so we need to be able to deliver quick changes as we find our product market fit. We’ve also got to ensure that we’re moving money safely, and keeping perfect records. The technologies we’ve chosen mix mature but well maintained frameworks like Django, with modern web-first and api-first front ends like GraphQL, NextJS, and Chakra. We use a little Golang sparingly in our backend to ensure that when we interact with financial services, we do so with statically compiled, strongly typed, and strictly limited and reviewed code.
You can read all about it in our linked blog post.
Pros of Clojure
- It is a lisp118
- Persistent data structures101
- Concise syntax100
- jvm-based language89
- Concurrency88
- Interactive repl82
- Code is data76
- Open source61
- Lazy data structures60
- Macros55
- Functional48
- Simplistic22
- Immutable by default21
- Excellent collections19
- Fast-growing community18
- Simple (not easy!)14
- Multiple host languages14
- Practical Lisp14
- Because it's really fun to use9
- Community9
- Addictive9
- It creates Reusable code8
- Web friendly8
- Rapid development8
- Minimalist7
- Programmable programming language5
- Java interop5
- Regained interest in programming4
- EDN3
- Compiles to JavaScript3
- Share a lot of code with clojurescript/use on frontend2
Pros of Erlang
- Concurrency Support60
- Real time, distributed applications60
- Fault tolerance56
- Soft real-time35
- Open source31
- Functional programming21
- Message passing20
- Immutable data15
- Works as expected13
- Facebook chat uses it at backend5
- Practical4
- Knowledgeable community4
- Bullets included3
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Cons of Clojure
- Cryptic stacktraces9
- Need to wrap basically every java lib4
- Toxic community4
- Good code heavily relies on local conventions3
- Slow application startup2
- Tonns of abandonware2
- Usable only with REPL1
- Hiring issues1
- Bad documented libs1
- Macros are overused by devs1
- Tricky profiling1
- IDE with high learning curve1
- Configuration bolierplate1
- Conservative community1
- Have no good and fast fmt0
Cons of Erlang
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