What is the Phoenix framework?

Your business depends on a modern, interactive website that offers users a unique and useful experience. For this, you can already include web apps or want to add web apps to the mix.

You would be smart to do just that. Why? Because web applications allow you to significantly expand the functionality of your company's website.

These web applications can be built in many ways. You can use languages ​​such as JavaScript, Python, Java, C++, C#, PHP or Perl, all of which are excellent tools for developing web applications. But at some point, your developers will need the right framework for the job.

A framework is a pre-packaged set of tools that developers can use (and reuse) to shorten the development lifecycle. In other words, developers don't need to reinvent the wheel to get the job done. Instead of building all the components, they can use a framework that includes exactly what they are looking for, already pre-defined and configured.

There are a large number of frameworks available, some of which work with very specific languages ​​or tasks. Phoenix is ​​a framework created specifically for building web applications.

Phoenix was built using Elixir, which was built on the Erlang VM and is used to build low-latency, fault-tolerant distributed systems. For any company currently using Ruby on Rails, the Phoenix Framework should be on your radar as it adds considerable performance gains. To top it off, Phoenix makes building web applications incredibly fast. And because Phoenix has an excellent collection of installation documents your developers will be able to get up and running quickly.

Features that may motivate your company to adopt the Phoenix Framework include:

• Simple naming conventions.
• Easy routing.
• Perfect balance between abstraction and explicitness.
• Focuses on short- and long-term productivity.
• Incredibly fast.
• Applications can automatically adapt to loading.
• Uses Node Package Manager (npm) for client-side tooling.
• It is a compiled language (which makes it faster).
• Concurrency is achieved with lightweight processes in the virtual machine.
• Fault tolerance, high availability and distribution are integrated.

Live view

One of the coolest features found in the Phoenix Framework is called Phoenix LiveView. This tool is a relatively new library that allows developers to create rich, real-time user experiences with nothing more than server-rendered HTML.

LiveView also adds two-way communication, via WebSockets, between the server and the client. This can be achieved without needing to rely on dedicated front-end JavaScript code. With LiveView, you can deploy real-time functionality in your web applications with very little effort. This functionality alone makes Phoenix Framework worth the price of admission.

LiveView can be one of the best methods of building real-time web applications. To make this even more attractive, developers just need to add the –live option (when creating a new application) to add the LiveView dependencies. So not only is LiveView a great way to create modern, real-time web applications, but you can also do it very easily. And because Phoenix LiveView enables the creation of enterprise-class applications, this framework is capable of serving companies of any size.

LiveView makes all of this possible because it is a library consisting of server-rendered models with live client-side updates.

In fact, the Phoenix Framework makes many things possible with single commands, such as:

• Complete CRUD (create, read, update and delete) with templates and controllers.
• REST type CRUD.
• Full JSON responses (instead of HTML).

For any company looking for the ability to create lightning-fast web applications, the Phoenix Framework could be the exact tool for you.

One thing you should know about LiveView is that it is relatively new and library development is happening quickly. But when you encounter issues with LiveView, its GitHub community is very responsive and your issues can be resolved in minutes.

Other LiveView features include:

• Declarative module for server-side HTML rendering.
• Smart templates and change tracking.
• Live form validation (which also includes file upload support).
• Advanced integration API included.
• Code reuse via components.
• Live navigation for link enrichment and redirects.
• A latency simulator.
• Testing tools.

Who uses the Phoenix Framework?

At this point, you shouldn't be surprised at companies using the Phoenix Framework. Companies like these working with the Phoenix Framework are using the tool to create responsive, real-time web applications:

• Bleacher report
• Inverse
• Bright Cove
• Heroic Labs
• CargoSense
• Voice layer
• Podium

And since the Phoenix Framework is open source, you can download and use it for free. But don't think you won't find support because Phoenix Framework is a very young tool. The community around this development platform is growing rapidly and the number of online tutorials available should make it advantageous for your business.

Conclusion

If your company relies on Ruby on Rails and finds it somewhat limiting, the Phoenix Framework is ready to pick up the slack and help your development teams build high-quality, real-time web applications. Just remember, to use the Phoenix Framework, your developers will have to know the Elixir language, so this may not be as simple as the framework alone might make it seem. So before your developers dive into the Phoenix Framework, be sure to start with Elixir.