Phoenix looks great, but seems like it's focus is on serving html to websites (like Rails). Is there something simpler for building REST apis for mobile/single-page apps (like Sinatra)?
I have just started working on a serious Phoenix project after watching from the sidelines for a while. It takes a completely different approach to Rails. First of all there's no magic (everything is completely explicit). It's extremely adaptable to different needs (JSON apis, real-time communication, etc).
Also note: Phoenix is not so much a singular framework, it's more of a collection of libraries (Plug, Ecto, etc.)... it's just that Elixir makes cohesive communication between independent libraries so dead simple it "feels" like a Rails-like monolith.
But once you actually look at the structure of the project, there's really not a whole lot that's hidden "behind the scenes" like in Rails. You can just add remove any of these components as you like.
Honestly give it a try. This is the first backend environment I've tried that feels "right" (and man I've been searching); everyone else I know who's tried it agrees. It's just a pleasure to work with.
I serve an API with it and also some services that use WebSockets. I've actually never used Phoenix to serve HTML, but I'd definitely recommend it for API development.
