Architectural Distinctions between Phoenix and Rails

George Arrowsmith reflects on his past experience with debates in the Ruby on Rails community regarding how to manage complexity as codebases grow. He elaborates on the mantra 'Rails is not your application,' which suggests that Rails should only handle web-specific logic, while a separate Ruby-based service layer manages business logic. However, Arrowsmith points out the challenges this approach faces due to the tight coupling within Rails components. Transitioning to Phoenix, Arrowsmith notices the framework's structure that inherently differentiates web components from the business logic. This separation is not just suggested but implemented in the standard Phoenix application architecture. Phoenix provides a clear, logical separation of concerns, positioning itself as a web library within an Elixir application, potentially leading to a more loosely coupled design.