Open Source Elixir Deployment Tools

Distillery is a release manager for Elixir applications, designed to package apps into self-contained, deployable artifacts. It automates the process of building OTP releases, handling steps like compilation, dependency bundling, and generating start/stop scripts. Releases built with Distillery include everything needed to run an Elixir app in production, even on machines without Elixir or Erlang installed. It also supports features like configuration providers, hot upgrades, and customizable release pipelines. By managing environment-specific settings, it simplifies deploying the same app to different systems without manual reconfiguration. Distillery has historically been a key tool for production Elixir deployments before Elixir added built-in release functionality, and it remains valuable for teams seeking flexibility in their deployment workflows.

Semaphore is a continuous integration and delivery platform that streamlines building, testing, and deploying software with an emphasis on speed and developer experience. Pipelines are defined declaratively and support parallel jobs, dependency fan-outs, and matrix builds to exercise many environments at once. First-class Docker and Kubernetes workflows, along with layer caching and artifacts, help keep containerized builds fast and reproducible. Secrets management, environment promotion, and approvals enable robust delivery gates from pull request to production. The system integrates with popular VCS providers and chat tools, surfacing real-time status, logs, and insights so teams can diagnose failures quickly. With autoscaling workers and flexible resource types, Semaphore adapts to small projects and large monorepos alike, turning CI/CD into a reliable, low-friction part of everyday development.