Apache Groovy vs. Crystal vs. IronPython vs. PowerShell Comparison Chart

Crystal’s syntax is heavily inspired by Ruby’s, so it feels natural to read and easy to write, and has the added benefit of a lower learning curve for experienced Ruby devs. Crystal is statically type-checked, so any type errors will be caught early by the compiler rather than fail on runtime. Moreover, and to keep the language clean, Crystal has built-in type inference, so most type annotations are unneeded. All types are non-nilable in Crystal, and available variables are represented as a union between the type and nil. As a consequence, the compiler will automatically check for null references in compile time. Crystal’s answer to metaprogramming is a powerful macro system, which ranges from basic templating and AST inspection to types inspection and running arbitrary external programs.

PowerShell is a cross-platform task automation and configuration management framework, consisting of a command-line shell and scripting language. Unlike most shells, which accept and return text, PowerShell is built on top of the .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR), and accepts and returns .NET objects. This fundamental change brings entirely new tools and methods for automation. Unlike traditional command-line interfaces, PowerShell cmdlets are designed to deal with objects. An object is structured information that is more than just the string of characters appearing on the screen. Command output always carries extra information that you can use if you need it. If you've used text-processing tools to process data in the past, you'll find that they behave differently when used in PowerShell. In most cases, you don't need text-processing tools to extract specific information. You directly access portions of the data using standard PowerShell object syntax.