QuickBEAM
run JavaScript as supervised Erlang/OTP processes
Get picks like this daily. Today's launch numbers, the top launches, AI and tech news, and a daily opportunity pick, straight to your inbox.
Want to reach these readers? Sponsor an issue.
QuickBEAM is a JavaScript runtime embedded inside the Erlang/OTP VM.If you’re building a full-stack app, JavaScript tends to leak in anyway — frontend, SSR, or third-party code.QuickBEAM runs that JavaScript inside OTP supervision trees.Each runtime is a process with a `Beam` global that can: - call Elixir code - send/receive messages - spawn and monitor processes - inspect runtime/system stateIt also provides browser-style APIs backed by OTP/native primitives (fetch, WebSocket, Worker, BroadcastChannel, localStorage, native DOM, etc.).This makes it usable for: - SSR - sandboxed user code - per-connection state - backend JS with direct OTP interopNotable bits:- JS runtimes are supervised and restartable - sandboxing with memory/reduction limits and API control - native DOM that Erlang can read directly (no string rendering step) - no JSON boundary between JS and Erlang - built-in TypeScript, npm support, and native addonsQuickBEAM is part of Elixir Volt — a full-stack frontend toolchain built on Erlang/OTP with no Node.js.Still early, feedback welcome.
HN · launched Mar 28, 2026 · 113 upvotes (top 8%) · 0 views
Niche: scripting and execution runtimes · 56 launches, 4 in the last 7 days · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Horizontal
- Dev tools
- Developer
- Not AI
- Hobby / open-source project
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 56 launches in scripting and execution runtimes →
Could you build this?
No Embedding a JavaScript runtime like QuickJS inside the Erlang VM as an OTP-supervised NIF requires deep systems programming, C/Rust, and internal Erlang runtime/scheduler concurrency knowledge.
What it would actually take: A real implementation requires writing Erlang NIFs (Native Implemented Functions) in C or Rust (e.g., using Rustler) to bridge a lightweight JS engine like QuickJS with the BEAM VM. The developer must ensure JavaScript execution yields properly to avoid starving BEAM reduction schedulers, wire Erlang message-passing semantics into the JS event loop, and manage foreign memory boundaries cleanly. This demands specialized expertise in language runtimes and low-level BEAM internals.
Discussion
16 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: QuickJS-NG, Node.js packages/modules, Other polyglot runtimes
Concerns raised: Sandboxing robustness for untrusted JS code, Supervision semantics when JS runtime crashes, Memory errors and process isolation guarantees
Feature requests: Seccomp support for additional defense-in-depth, Native C++ addon support beyond pure JS
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 274 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #29 of 275 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 147 days after the earliest competitor.
- hyperlang · github · 2026-10-26 · 33 upvotes · similarity 0.45
- Script: JavaScript That Runs Like Rust · hn · 2026-01-27 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.44
- LemonBeam · ph · 2026-09-25 · 2 upvotes · similarity 0.44
- Ant · hn · 2026-05-09 · 8 upvotes · similarity 0.44
- Typical is TypeScript with type-safety at runtime · hn · 2026-01-11 · 8 upvotes · similarity 0.43
- Nectar, a Rust-like React that compiles to WebAssembly · hn · 2026-07-06 · 29 upvotes · similarity 0.43
- JSON to TypeScript Interface Converter · ph · 2026-09-15 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.42
- Firefox in WebAssembly · hn · 2026-07-15 · 273 upvotes · similarity 0.41
The niche, labels, vibe code rating and competitor comparison on this page are analysis by Nicheloom. If you use them, please credit nicheloom.com. How you may use our data.