Introduction

Hologram is a full-stack isomorphic Elixir web framework that runs on top of Phoenix. It lets developers create dynamic, interactive web applications entirely in Elixir. Through intelligent code analysis and transformation, Hologram compiles the necessary parts of your Elixir code to JavaScript, delivering modern frontend functionality without requiring any JavaScript frameworks or direct JavaScript coding.

Key Features

Pure Elixir development: write your entire web application in Elixir without needing to write JavaScript code
Client-side state: state management happens in the browser for snappy user interfaces
Automatic code distribution: Hologram automatically handles the separation and conversion of client/server code
Seamless communication: client-server interaction happens automatically through HTTP/2 persistent connections - no manual setup needed, with the speed of WebSockets and better scalability
Server-side rendering (SSR): every page is fully rendered to HTML on the server on first load - SEO-friendly and fast to first paint - then becomes interactive on the client

Framework Philosophy

Hologram was created with several key principles in mind:

Developer experience: focus on writing features instead of boilerplate code
Convention over configuration: follow established patterns while maintaining flexibility
Unified language: use Elixir for both client and server-side logic
Component-based architecture: build applications using reusable building blocks

Inspiration

Hologram draws inspiration from several successful web technologies:
Elm, Phoenix LiveView, Surface and Ruby on Rails.