Erlang vs. Java vs. Mnesia vs. NetElixir Comparison Chart

Erlang is a programming language used to build massively scalable soft real-time systems with requirements on high availability. Some of its 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. It includes its own distributed database, applications to interface towards other languages, debugging and release handling tools.

The management of data in telecommunications systems has many aspects of which some, but not all, are addressed by traditional Database Management Systems (DBMSs). In particular, the high level of fault tolerance required in many nonstop systems, combined with requirements on the DBMS to run in the same address space as the applications, have led us to implement a new DBMS, called Mnesia. Mnesia is implemented in, and tightly coupled to Erlang. It provides the functionality that is necessary for the implementation of fault-tolerant telecommunications systems. Mnesia is a multiuser distributed DBMS specifically designed for industrial-grade telecommunications applications written in Erlang, which is also the intended target language. Mnesia tries to address all the data management issues required for typical telecommunications systems and has a number of features not normally found in traditional DBMSs.