Interoperability in 2025: beyond the Erlang VM

The Erlang Virtual Machine has, historically, provided three main options for interoperability with other languages and ecosystems, with different degrees of isolation: NIFs (Native Implemented Functions) integrate with third party code in the same memory space via C bindings. This translates to low overhead and best performance but it also means faulty code can bring the whole Virtual Machine down, bypassing some of Erlang’s fault-tolerance guarantees Ports start a separate Operating System process to comm