Install erlang with Homebrew, chocolatey, apt, dnf, MacPorts, pacman, scoop, winget, zypper, Nix

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• ct_run
• dialyzer
• epmd
• erl
• erlc
• escript
• run_erl
• to_erl
• typer

Project history

Erlang began at Ericsson as a language and runtime for telecom systems, with Joe Armstrong, Robert Virding, and Mike Williams credited by Erlang's official FAQ as the original language designers. The language was shaped around lightweight processes, message passing, fault tolerance, hot code loading, and distribution because telecom switching systems needed long-running services that could be upgraded and recovered without ordinary downtime.

OTP, the Open Telecom Platform, grew around Erlang as the reusable library and design-principles layer. The official Erlang/OTP README describes OTP as the Erlang runtime system plus ready-to-use components and design principles for Erlang programs. In practice, OTP behaviours such as servers, supervisors, and applications are as important to Erlang culture as the syntax of the language itself.

The public GitHub repository was created in 2009, moving the visible development workflow into the same source-control and pull-request culture used by many package ecosystems. The README points users to GitHub issues, contribution docs, official downloads, and source builds, while the install guide documents Unix/Linux and macOS source builds from official tarballs or Git clones.

Adoption history

Erlang's original adoption base was telecom infrastructure, but its reputation expanded to any domain that values concurrency, fault tolerance, and soft real-time behavior. The official README now describes the language in broad terms rather than telecom-only terms, and package-manager coverage across Homebrew, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, MacPorts, Nix, Chocolatey, Scoop, winget, and zypper reflects that it is treated as a standard language runtime.

The wider BEAM ecosystem increased Erlang/OTP's visibility beyond Erlang-only projects. Elixir runs on the same VM, tools such as ExDoc are used for Erlang documentation builds, and Erlang/OTP remains the base runtime layer for BEAM package managers, releases, and deployment workflows.

How it is used

Daily use starts with `erl` for the interactive shell, `erlc` for compiling modules, `escript` for script-like command-line programs, and `epmd` for node discovery. The Homebrew formula also exposes tools such as `dialyzer`, `ct_run`, `typer`, `run_erl`, and `to_erl`, which reflects the fact that Erlang/OTP is a full runtime and operations toolkit rather than a single compiler binary.

Developers use Erlang/OTP to build supervision trees, distributed nodes, long-running services, protocol servers, and concurrent applications. Packagers must care about native dependencies such as OpenSSL, ncurses, Java for jinterface, wxWidgets for GUI pieces, and documentation tooling because optional OTP applications are built or skipped depending on what the build environment provides.

Why package nerds care

Erlang is significant in package-manager culture because it is both a language runtime and a dependency substrate. Installing it unlocks Erlang applications, many Elixir workflows, BEAM tooling, release managers, language servers, and test tools; version selection affects compiled code, NIF compatibility, TLS support, and available OTP applications.

It is also a classic example of a package whose build is simple to type but not trivial to package well. The official install guide documents source tarballs, Git clones, `$ERL_TOP`, Unix/macOS builds, and optional components gated by system libraries. That gives package maintainers real choices about feature coverage, reproducibility, patching, and compatibility with downstream BEAM tooling.

Timeline

• 1980s: Erlang was developed at Ericsson for telecom-style concurrent, fault-tolerant systems.
• 1990s: OTP grew around Erlang as the reusable runtime, library, and design-principles layer.
• 2009: The public Erlang/OTP GitHub repository was created.
• 2020s: Erlang/OTP is packaged broadly across Unix-like, macOS, Windows, and Nix-style ecosystems.

Related projects

• Closely related projects include OTP applications, Dialyzer, Common Test, EPMD, Kerl, Elixir, ExDoc, Erlang LS, Erlang Language Platform, and the wider BEAM VM ecosystem.

Sources

• https://www.erlang.org/faq/academic
• https://github.com/erlang/otp
• https://github.com/erlang/otp/blob/master/HOWTO/INSTALL.md
• https://api.github.com/repos/erlang/otp
• https://www.erlang.org/docs