Nova: A New Web Framework for Erlang

51 taure 20 7/31/2025, 1:06:16 PM

Hi Hacker News community,

I'm excited to share Nova, a new web framework built for Erlang, designed to make web development in Erlang simpler, faster, and more approachable. Nova leverages Erlang's concurrency, reliability, and scalability to create a robust yet lightweight framework for building modern web applications.

Key features:

* Lightweight and modular: Easy to integrate with existing Erlang projects.

* Built for concurrency: Harnesses Erlang's actor model for high-performance web apps.

* Developer-friendly: Simplifies routing, middleware, and template handling.

* Extensible: Supports plugins and custom integrations.

Check it out: GitHub: https://github.com/novaframework/nova Homepage: https://novaframework.org Getting Started Guide: https://dev.to/taure/getting-started-with-nova-1ioo/stats

We’re early in development and would love feedback from the community! If you’re an Erlang enthusiast or curious about building web apps with a language known for its reliability (think WhatsApp or RabbitMQ), give Nova a spin and let us know your thoughts.

What do you think about using Erlang for web development? Any features you’d love to see in a framework like this?

Comments (20)

SoftTalker · 3h ago

I will check this out. Are you familiar with the Nitrogen framework? I've used it a bit and quite liked it, but not sure it's really an active project anymore.

https://nitrogenproject.com/

Could you compare/contrast Nova to Nitrogen?

taure · 2h ago

We did a fireside chat about it a couple of years ago.

https://youtu.be/PgBzV1-E00k?si=sULVBvLsVPm2S3zl

prophesi · 4h ago

Not sure how this hit the front page without linking the actual project.

https://novaframework.org/

taure · 3h ago

Thank you. I missed to add a new line where the homepage is..

CollinEMac · 4h ago

This seems like a tough sell when Phoenix is already so good. I'm struggling to see why I'd use this over that.

worthless-trash · 3h ago

Because its not elixir, its erlang. For those of us who dont do elixir, this fits the knowledge I already have.

taure · 3h ago

Nova is also more close to beam so it can be used with elixir and lfe or other beam languages.

azaras · 4h ago

Why do you use Erlang instead of Elixir?

johnnyjeans · 2h ago

No rebinding, better fits the grain of the OTP, no AST macros. Last I checked, the debugging experience with elixir was pretty subpar. Erlang is also a fundamentally nicer syntax that I find a great deal more readable. I'm not really sure what the appeal of Elixir as a language is actually supposed to be, outside of people who have spent a lot of time writing Ruby code.

klibertp · 1h ago

> I'm not really sure what the appeal of Elixir as a language is actually supposed to be

Easy:

    - rebinding
    - higher-level OTP abstractions
    - AST macros
    - nicer, more readable syntax
    - (optionally) cleaner stdlib

(Assuming you're not trolling: you chose to focus on features that can only be judged subjectively, and therefore can only be discussed as preferences. It's ok to have them, but actively displaying them is a bit pointless. Objectively measurable features of both languages put them very close together, with both having slight advantages over the other in different areas, on average making them almost equivalent. Especially compared to anything non-BEAM.)

asa400 · 2h ago

Full disclosure: I started with Erlang, I get paid to work with Elixir every day, I love Erlang still.

Why someone might like Elixir:

  - slightly less crufty stdlib for a lot of the basic stuff (though we still use the Erlang stdlib all the time)
  - the Elixir community started off using binaries instead of charlists so everything uses binaries
  - great general collections libraries in the stdlib that operate on interfaces/protocols rather than concrete collections (Enum, Stream)
  - macros allow for default impls and a good deal less boilerplate, great libraries like Phoenix and Ecto, and the community seems to be pretty judicious with their use
  - protocols allow datatype polymorphism in a really nice way (I know about behaviours, they are also good)
  - very standard build tool/project layout/generators that have been there from the start (Erlang has caught up here with rebar, it seems)
  - a lot of high quality libraries for web stuff, specifically
  - convenience stuff around common OTP patterns like Task, Task.Supervisor, Agent, etc.

For me, I love the clarity and brevity of Erlang the language but I find Elixir a lot more pleasant to use day-to-day. This is just personal, I am not making a general statement saying Elixir is better.

> Last I checked, the debugging experience with elixir was pretty subpar.

Just curious, why is this? All of the Erlang debugging stuff seems to work.

klibertp · 1h ago

> Just curious, why is this? All of the Erlang debugging stuff seems to work.

But you'd see a decompiled Erlang-ish code in the (WX-based, graphical) debugger, no? Genuinely curious, I think it was like that last I checked, but that was in 2019.

cmdrk · 4h ago

Not to pick on you, but there are always posts like this in every Erlang thread. One is not strictly superior to the other, and the BEAM community benefits from the variety IMO.

taure · 3h ago

We started with Erlang before Elixir was created and we still use it for everything we do.

This is more to have a smooth web framework similar to Phoenix but for Erlang.

You can also use Nova for elixir.

colecut · 4h ago

It seems he wanted to make an alternative to Elixir..

regularfry · 4h ago

You've run into the same naming problem GM did with the Vauxhall/Opel Nova: "No Va" literally means some variant of "it doesn't go" in (at least) Italian, Spanish, and French.

jen20 · 2h ago

While this is a nice story, it's not true [1] [2].

[1]: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chevrolet-nova-name-spanis...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Chevy_II_/_Nova

macintux · 1h ago

If nothing else, perhaps this persistent myth helps reduce the naming conflicts when someone wants to use Nova.

bobbylarrybobby · 3h ago

And Uranus (when spoken aloud) means “your butt”. Is this really a big concern?

LtdJorge · 2h ago

No, I’m from Spain and have never though about that "no va" thing. Nova comes from Latin AFAIK. It would be "nueva" in Spanish and "nuova" in Italian.

Edit: Uranus is Latin too :)