Mix build tool
Shares rank 16 of 17 build systems by recommenders
Elixir's built-in build and dependency tool, praised for convenience, familiarity to users of tools like Gradle, and a pleasant experience to use.
Elixir's built-in build and dependency tool, praised for convenience, familiarity to users of tools like Gradle, and a pleasant experience to use.
7 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 71%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 2.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Familiar to users of other build tools
“Mix is very convenient and feels like similar tools in other languages”
Comment from 12 Feb 2026 in “From 34% to 96%: The Porting Initiative Delivers – Hologram v0.7.0” “Mix is like a (way better) version of Gradle”
Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “Elixir v1.20 released: now a gradually typed language” Better than Node's build and dependency tooling
“Hex.pm and Mix for building and dependency management are miles better than anything node has to offer”
Comment from 4 Nov 2025 in “Why we migrated from Python to Node.js” Enjoyable to use
“it's such a great experience”
Comment from 8 Jun 2026 in “OCaml Onboarding: Introduction to the Dune build system”
Other build systems people recommend
The four most recommended other build systems, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bazel | 79 | 41 | 66% | 12 | 3 yrs3 owners | — |
| GNU Make | 76 | 42 | 64% | 12 | — | — |
| CMake | 58 | 93 | 38% | 12 | — | — |
| Apache Maven | 44 | 42 | 51% | 12 | — | — |
| Mix build toolThis page | 5 | 2 | 71% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
6 of the 7 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“MIX assumes a single accumulator register for arithmetic, which hasn't been a common processor architecture since around the 1980s.”
“it's such a great experience”
“Mix is like a (way better) version of Gradle”
“The changed new versions of the old songs were all worse, not better”
“Mix is very convenient and feels like similar tools in other languages”
“Hex.pm and Mix for building and dependency management are miles better than anything node has to offer”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.