Elixir Survey 2023

Explore insights from 400 participants on the Elixir programming language's state in 2023
About the survey

Elixir is exceptional. As of 2023, it's considered one of the most loved and pleasant to use programming languages, evolving through great tooling like Phoenix LiveView, Nx, and Livebook. However, it still needs wider adoption to gain more popularity.

Curiosum mission is to expose more programmers and decision-makers to this fantastic technology. To make it happen, we need insights into the challenges faced by the Elixir community, and suggestions for its future development.

To gather diverse data, we decided to organize our first Elixir survey. Our goal is to conduct it annually, making it better every year. Nearly 400 individuals participated in this edition, each responding to 27 questions.

We appreciate your participation and hope you find the results interesting.

Curiosum Team

1. What is your occupation?

392 out of 392 answered

Developer
311 resp.
79.3%
CTO
39 resp.
9.9%
CEO
14 resp.
3.6%
Student
9 resp.
2.3%
Project Manager
3 resp.
0.8%
Other
16 resp.
4.1%
Summary

Most of the survey participants are developers. If we take into account the main responses as well as the ones from the 'Other' section, almost 15% of respondents are C-level executives, and heads of engineering. A few respondents are also engaged in recruitment, quality assurance and teaching roles.

Overall, the results are rather as we expected, thefore most of the answers are coming from people involved in Elixir programming on a daily basis.

2. How long have you been using Elixir?

392 out of 392 answered

1-3 years
122 resp.
31.1%
More than 5 years
114 resp.
29.1%
3-5 years
100 resp.
25.5%
Less than 1 year
56 resp.
14.3%
Summary

Interestingly, the data shows a balanced distribution across all categories except for 'Less than a year'. Approximately 45% of the respondents are either new (Less than a year of experience) or fairly new (1-3 years of experience) to Elixir, indicating a positive trend.

To gather more definitive data on this crucial topic, we plan to include additional questions in the upcoming year's survey.

3. How would you rate your Elixir knowledge?

392 out of 392 answered

6.8
Average rating
Summary

A significant number of respondents self-assessed their proficiency in Elixir as high. This trend might suggest that Elixir is relatively easy to learn, or it could reflect a common habit among people to rate their skills highly. From our experience, the general skill level in the market is quite good, yet many, including senior professionals, tend to face difficulties with OTP-related tasks.

4. Why have you decided to adapt Elixir in your projects?

392 out of 392 answered

Functional Programming Paradigm
288 resp.
73.5%
Productivity
284 resp.
72.4%
Concurrency
276 resp.
70.4%
Fault Tolerance
248 resp.
63.3%
Scalability
219 resp.
55.9%
Flexibility
146 resp.
37.2%
Other
34 resp.
8.7%
Summary

The main factors for adopting Elixir are its functional paradigm, efficiency, and support for concurrency. While scalability is often mentioned as a benefit of Elixir, it doesn't score as highly in the survey findings.

For the additional reasons given, many respondents pointed to the Phoenix Framework, Phoenix Live View, the enjoyable experience of working with the language, and its introduction at their place of work as incentives for using Elixir.

5. Have you integrated Elixir with other programming languages? (for example, using NIFs) If so, which ones?

392 out of 392 answered

None
209 resp.
53.3%
JavaScript
77 resp.
19.6%
Rust
75 resp.
19.1%
Python
39 resp.
9.9%
C/C++
38 resp.
9.7%
Ruby
15 resp.
3.8%
Java
9 resp.
2.3%
Go
6 resp.
1.5%
Other
18 resp.
4.6%
Summary

Rust is likely the leading language to be combined with Elixir through NIFs. Although JavaScript topped the responses, it's presumed that its use is mainly for frontend purposes.

In the 'Other' section, Zig, PHP, Elm, and Perl emerged as the most commonly mentioned languages.

6. Which hosting platform do you use?

392 out of 392 answered

AWS
192 resp.
49%
Fly.io
142 resp.
36.2%
Google Cloud Platform
54 resp.
13.8%
Gigalixir
38 resp.
9.7%
Hetzner
38 resp.
9.7%
Heroku
31 resp.
7.9%
Digital Ocean
20 resp.
5.1%
Render
16 resp.
4.0%
Microsoft Azure
15 resp.
3.8%
Other
68 resp.
17.3%
Summary

AWS and Fly.io emerge as the top choices for hosting, with Fly.io's decision to include Phoenix Framework creator Chris McCord on their team proving beneficial. Despite being a platform dedicated to Elixir, Gigalixir is used by only 10% of respondents.

Google and Microsoft are not very popular in the Elixir community, with Microsoft being notably less used. However, with Microsoft's recent heavy investment in AI infrastructure, it will be interesting to see if this leads to an increased adoption of their platform by Elixir users.

In the custom answers category, few people opt for hosting Elixir apps on self-hosted infrastructure.

7. Which code editor do you use?

392 out of 392 answered

Visual Studio Code
260 resp.
66.3%
Vim
133 resp.
33.9%
Emacs
38 resp.
9.7%
IntelliJ
31 resp.
7.9%
Sublime
13 resp.
3.3%
Cursor
0 resp.
0%
Other
41 resp.
10.5%
Summary

In the never-ending war between Vim and Emacs, Elixir devs vote in favor of Vim! This is, however, nothing in comparison to the popularity of Visual Studio Code, which got 20% more than both of these combined.

Interesting insights are also being revealed from custom responses. NeoVim and Zed received 13 responses, whereas Helix accounted for 8.

8. How do you find the performance of Elixir in your production environment?

392 out of 392 answered

8.6
Average rating
Summary

Responders' votes are clear in this case. The vast majority of the Elixir community is very much satisfied with the performance of Elixir in production, giving an 8.6 average score out of 10.

9. Have you faced any scalability issues with Elixir?

392 out of 392 answered

Yes
52 resp.
13.3%
No
340 resp.
86.7%
Summary

The scalability factor is frequently cited as a motivation for using Elixir. Consequently, we inquired with the Elixir community about any challenges encountered when scaling Elixir applications. The responses indicate that Elixir scales effectively. However, it's important to consider that some participants in this survey may not have yet experienced scaling to a significant extent.

10. How would you rate the fault tolerance and reliability of Elixir applications in production?

392 out of 392 answered

8.9
Average rating
Summary

While certain survey participants may not have reached a large scale in their systems yet (a factor that could impact the results of the previous question), testing for fault tolerance typically occurs early in application development. The voting pattern reflects this, with a rising score rate, and the majority of respondents express very high satisfaction with Elixir's fault tolerance capabilities.

11. Has adopting Elixir led to faster time-to-market for your products or features?

392 out of 392 answered

Yes
304 resp.
77.6%
No
88 resp.
22.4%
Summary

As expressed in the 'Why have you decided to adapt Elixir in your projects?' question, Elixir is valued for its productivity. This particular characteristic greatly influences the time-to-market, and the consensus among survey respondents is that Elixir effectively aids in shortening this timeframe.

12. Have you previously used another programming language for the tasks you now handle with Elixir? If so, which one(s)?

392 out of 392 answered

JavaScript
205 resp.
52.3%
Ruby
174 resp.
44.4%
Python
138 resp.
35.2%
Java
79 resp.
20.2%
Go
60 resp.
15.3%
PHP
36 resp.
9.1%
C/C++
34 resp.
8.7%
Rust
20 resp.
5.1%
Other
60 resp.
15.3%
Summary

JavaScript, holding the title of the world's most popular programming language, ranks at the top of this list. Ruby comes in second, a predictable placement given that many developers transitioned to Elixir for features they couldn't find in Ruby but discovered in Elixir.

In the custom response category, C# leads 16 with mentions, and Erlang with 7.

Our initial assumption was that Ruby would be the primary source of developers migrating to Elixir. However, it's intriguing to discover that the majority actually transition from JavaScript.

13. Are you using Phoenix Live View in production?

392 out of 392 answered

Yes
246 resp.
62.8%
No
146 resp.
37.2%
Summary

As of now, Phoenix LiveView is yet to release its version 1.0.0. Nonetheless, given its already prevalent use in production environments, as reported by the community and our own experience with clients, it posed an intriguing question for exploration.

It's interesting to find that over half of the respondents are already utilizing Phoenix LiveView in production. This makes it a real alternative to the more conventional component-based JavaScript frameworks.

14. How would you describe the ease of learning Elixir for developers?

392 out of 392 answered

Neutral
182 resp.
46.4%
Easy
131 resp.
33.4%
Hard
54 resp.
13.8%
Very Easy
18 resp.
4.6%
Very Hard
7 resp.
1.8%
Summary

The simplicity of learning a programming language significantly influences its rapid adoption. A majority of the respondents, nearly 80%, perceive Elixir as either easy or neutral to learn.

Attention should be paid to the 'Neutral' responses within the community, with the objective being to shift this percentage towards 'Easy'. This can be accomplished through sharing knowledge and developing tutorials that are accessible to newcomers. Given the insight that most developers are transitioning from JavaScript, Ruby, and Python, the learning materials could be specifically designed to cater to these groups.

15. How often do you encounter breaking changes or issues when updating Elixir or its dependencies?

392 out of 392 answered

Rarely
211 resp.
53.8%
Sometimes
127 resp.
32.4%
Never
29 resp.
7.4%
Often
18 resp.
4.6%
Very often
7 resp.
1.8%
Summary

It's reassuring to note that there isn't much need for commentary, as the community appears to rarely face any problems with Elixir dependencies. Kudos to the open-source contributors for their excellent work!

16. How would you rate the documentation and community support for Elixir?

392 out of 392 answered

8.5
Average rating
Summary

The outcome aligns well with expectations. Elixir is frequently commended for its comprehensive documentation, and tools like LiveBook, although not directly used for Elixir's documentation, contribute significantly to enhancing this aspect as well.

17. Do you plan to continue using Elixir for future projects?

392 out of 392 answered

Yes
381 resp.
97.2%
No
11 resp.
2.8%
Summary

According to the Stack Overflow Survey Elixir has been among the top two most loved or admired programming languages (alongside Rust), and it did it for a good reason. The result of this question is pretty clear - the community loves Elixir, and they're here to stay.

18. What have been the biggest challenges in adopting and using Elixir in production?

392 out of 392 answered

Hiring
181 resp.
46.2%
Integrations and missing open-source libraries
172 resp.
43.9%
Ecosystem Maturity
130 resp.
33.2%
Learning Curve
113 resp.
28.8%
Documentation
45 resp.
11.5%
None
22 resp.
5.6%
Summary

The primary challenges encountered by the Elixir community are linked to its level of popularity. Issues such as recruitment, the range of open-source libraries, and the overall maturity of the ecosystem could benefit from an increase in the number of developers, decision-makers, and open-source contributors.

Additionally, several respondents point out difficulties related to the 'Learning Curve', suggesting that this might also contribute to some developers' reluctance to adopt this technology.

19. Does your organization use Elixir?

392 out of 392 answered

Yes
310 resp.
79.1%
No
70 resp.
17.9%
I don't know
12 resp.
3.1%
Summary

Most of the respondents are either employed by or in charge of an organization that uses Elixir. For those who selected 'No' in their responses, the survey outcomes could be especially relevant, as they might be contemplating the integration of this technology.

20. Did your organization consider using Elixir?

82 out of 392 answered

No
50 resp.
61%
I don't know
21 resp.
25.6%
Yes
11 resp.
13.4%
Summary

Since this question was addressed to those who chose 'No' in previous question, the response pool is smaller. Merely 13.4% have contemplated using Elixir, and among those who responded 'No' here, some might be seeking their initial employment opportunity in Elixir.

21. Why your organization decided not to adopt Elixir?

11 out of 392 answered

Lack of skills in the team
8 resp.
72.7%
The cost of adoption
2 resp.
18.2%
Lack of time
1 resp.
9.1%
We chose another technology
0 resp.
0%
Summary

The question was aimed at those who said 'No' in previous question. The most significant hurdles in adopting Elixir are identified as a lack of team expertise and financial implications.

22. How would you describe the size of the organization?

321 out of 392 answered

Startup
154 resp.
48%
SME (Small Medium Enterprise)
128 resp.
39.9%
Large enterprise
35 resp.
10.9%
I don't have professional experience with Elixir
4 resp.
1.2%
Summary

A majority of the respondents are employed in startups, which is encouraging as it indicates a growing preference for Elixir as the primary technology in these new businesses. As expected, 'Large enterprise' responses are the least common.

The implication of these findings is clear: there's a need to convince larger corporations to adopt Elixir, as the language's widespread adoption is heavily linked to its use and investments by major enterprises.

23. How has Elixir impacted the company's overall operational costs?

310 out of 392 answered

Without changes
139 resp.
44.8%
Drop
100 resp.
32.3%
Growth
71 resp.
22.9%
Summary

While a number of participants noticed a decrease in operational expenses after switching to Elixir, there's also a significant portion who experienced an increase. This variation could be attributed to factors like hiring and salary expenses.

It's important to acknowledge that this observation isn't straightforward to quantify, so these responses could be considered more as subjective perceptions rather than concrete data.

24. Does Elixir give you a competitive advantage in your industry?

310 out of 392 answered

Yes
249 resp.
80.3%
No
61 resp.
19.7%
Summary

These responses reveal a fascinating insight: despite Elixir leading to increased or unchanged operational costs for many businesses, the vast majority of the community still perceives adopting Elixir as a competitive edge for their companies.

25. How hard was it to find developers skilled in Elixir for your team?

310 out of 392 answered

Hard
116 resp.
37.4%
Neither hard or easy
115 resp.
37.1%
Very hard
51 resp.
16.5%
Without any problems
21 resp.
6.8%
Easy
7 resp.
2.3%
Summary

Unfortunately, hiring seems to be a very painful experience for companies building Elixir teams. From our perspective, it comes down to two things - the shortage of talent in IT in recent years and Elixir being a less popular technology.

Hiring, though, is a process, and just like you need to market products or services, there is also a need to build a strong brand around given technology to attract the best talents. Some of the companies, leverage other forms of team-building methods, such as freelancing or outsourcing, which could be additionally beneficial for companies struggling to hire the best talents.

26. How active is your company in the Elixir community (e.g., open-source contributions, attending conferences)?

310 out of 392 answered

Inactive
79 resp.
25.5%
Neither active nor inactive
73 resp.
23.5%
Slightly inactive
70 resp.
22.6%
Active
61 resp.
19.7%
Very active
27 resp.
8.7%
Summary

Most of the companies are not very active in the Elixir community. That correlates very well with answers to previous questions about hiring. If a company wants to attract the best talents and contribute to Elxir's popularity, it should consider starting more initiatives within the community.

27. Where are you from?

310 out of 392 answered

United States of America
68 resp.
21.9%
Brazil
32 resp.
10.3%
Poland
29 resp.
9.4%
Germany
17 resp.
5.5%
Canada
11 resp.
3.5%
France
9 resp.
2.9%
Portugal
9 resp.
2.9%
United Kingdom
9 resp.
2.9%
Spain
7 resp.
2.3%
Belgium
6 resp.
1.9%
Philippines
6 resp.
1.9%
Ukraine
6 resp.
1.9%
Australia
5 resp.
1.6%
Austria
5 resp.
1.6%
Italy
5 resp.
1.6%
Mexico
5 resp.
1.6%
Argentina
4 resp.
1.3%
China
4 resp.
1.3%
Colombia
4 resp.
1.3%
Ireland
4 resp.
1.3%
Kenya
4 resp.
1.3%
Netherlands
4 resp.
1.3%
Sweden
4 resp.
1.3%
India
3 resp.
1%
Pakistan
3 resp.
1%
Russia
3 resp.
1%
Slovenia
3 resp.
1%
Switzerland
3 resp.
1%
Bulgaria
2 resp.
0.6%
Czechia (Czech Republic)
2 resp.
0.6%
Denmark
2 resp.
0.6%
Greece
2 resp.
0.6%
Lithuania
2 resp.
0.6%
New Zealand
2 resp.
0.6%
Romania
2 resp.
0.6%
Uganda
2 resp.
0.6%
Cameroon
1 resp.
0.3%
Chile
1 resp.
0.3%
Croatia
1 resp.
0.3%
Estonia
1 resp.
0.3%
Georgia
1 resp.
0.3%
Hungary
1 resp.
0.3%
Iceland
1 resp.
0.3%
Iran
1 resp.
0.3%
Kazakhstan
1 resp.
0.3%
Kuwait
1 resp.
0.3%
Malta
1 resp.
0.3%
Moldova
1 resp.
0.3%
Nicaragua
1 resp.
0.3%
Nigeria
1 resp.
0.3%
Serbia
1 resp.
0.3%
Singapore
1 resp.
0.3%
South Korea
1 resp.
0.3%
Sri Lanka
1 resp.
0.3%
United Arab Emirates
1 resp.
0.3%
Uruguay
1 resp.
0.3%
Venezuela
1 resp.
0.3%
Vietnam
1 resp.
0.3%
Summary

And finally! It was an exciting question for all of us since many people tend to ask it. We also saw some reports in recent years where data seemed a bit off.

For sure, we will strive to gather even more answers next year, but in this survey, most of the Elixir developers are spread across the USA, Brazil, Poland, Germany, and Canada!

Since we're from Poland, we're happy to be on the podium, while it also seems like José Valim's country - Brazil - followed the creator of Elixir to take the second place. USA takes 1st place.