Evaluating the Use of Processes in Phoenix Applications

Brian Underwood's talk, delivered at Code BEAM Europe 2023, delves into the resilience and performance of Phoenix applications, specifically through the lens of a ride-sharing app he developed. He explores whether using more processes, like GenServers and Supervisors, actually improves performance and reliability. The talk includes a deep dive into different process and supervision architectures, utilizing external databases, process state, and ETS tables. Underwood emphasizes the importance of understanding processes, not just using them, and evaluates different configurations and their impact on read and write operations. Through a series of benchmarks on his experimental app, Underwood presents practical insights into scaling and optimizing Phoenix applications.