Question

Can I do that?
I’m afraid that this can be an overkill and eventually I’ll end up with much less productivity than with traditional stack like Ruby/Python/you name it. I understand that you will start with much lower productivity if you start to work with new technology but .. is it potentially worth trying and finally switch to Erlang as the only tool for web development and all the backend stuff.

Or is Erlang more suitable for only some high performance backend tasks?

Answer 1

Probably not.

Can you? Yes of course. Should you? Probably not.

If your goal is to learn a new language then sure, by all means do so. Best way to learn a language is to jump in and use it.

That said, established web frameworks and languages are popular for a reason, they work. Even more important, if you need people to work with you in the future, using a more obscure language narrows down the talent pool a ton. I’ve run into this problem a few times in the past, where something that started out as a learning exercise in language X ended up going into production. Then, once that developer moves on or into a different project, or the scale gets too large for a single developer, you are pretty much screwed at recruiting new talent.

As the comment from Jer said too, you really need to ask yourself why you would use Erlang for a web application. Certain tools and technologies are well geared towards certain tasks and some aren’t. For example, a screwdriver is great at screwing in screws but is only a passable hammer.