
Ask HN: Who's using Clojure, and to do what? - udkl
Who&#x27;s using Clojure in production today and what are you using it for? I&#x27;m curious about the state of the ecosystem and its adoption today.
There are a lot of old threads (on HN[1] or Quora[2]) that ask this - but none of them seem to reflect latest on who&#x27;s using Clojure in production in 2017.<p>[1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hn.algolia.com&#x2F;#!&#x2F;story&#x2F;forever&#x2F;0&#x2F;whos%20using%20clojure<p>[2] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.quora.com&#x2F;Whos-using-Clojure-in-production<p>Ask HN post from 2014 : https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=8549823
======
puredanger
Some talks from the last year:

Ladder (life insurance) -
[https://youtu.be/qijWBPYkRAQ](https://youtu.be/qijWBPYkRAQ)

Apex Data Solutions -
[https://youtu.be/wR2kYn-7ijQ](https://youtu.be/wR2kYn-7ijQ)

Sandia National Labs (research lab) -
[https://youtu.be/RB65-zYLNSY](https://youtu.be/RB65-zYLNSY)

Cisco - [https://youtu.be/8rRzESy0X2k](https://youtu.be/8rRzESy0X2k)

DataStax - [https://youtu.be/wfrajaEyNX0](https://youtu.be/wfrajaEyNX0)

Audyx (web-based sonograms) -
[https://youtu.be/K6ZoF3CHsa0](https://youtu.be/K6ZoF3CHsa0)

Latacora (crypto)
-[https://youtu.be/Lf-M1ZH6KME](https://youtu.be/Lf-M1ZH6KME)

Nubank (banking) -
[https://youtu.be/aw6y4r4NAlw](https://youtu.be/aw6y4r4NAlw)

HCA (healthcare) -
[https://youtu.be/OxUHgP4Ox5Q](https://youtu.be/OxUHgP4Ox5Q)

Center for Mathematical Sciences at Cambridge -
[https://youtu.be/-NebRpbMTK8](https://youtu.be/-NebRpbMTK8)

Zimpler (payments) -
[https://youtu.be/s0QG3QCV1LY](https://youtu.be/s0QG3QCV1LY)

------
mclarke
Our API Banking team uses Clojure to power production public-facing APIs at
Silicon Valley Bank
([http://docs.svbplatform.com](http://docs.svbplatform.com)). Great fit for
our use case; we can leverage lots of existing banking-related Java libraries
while still writing clean, concise, and functional code.

We have a hackathon coming up on June 15 in SF and we'd love to find even just
one Clojurist who wants to attend to make it worth our while to build out a
clojure SDK :P Contact mclarke@svb.com if you're interested in more info.

(we are also hiring)

~~~
jogjayr
Haven't worked on Clojure for a few years but would love to know more details
about your Hackathon

------
tlrobinson
Metabase's backend is written entirely in Clojure.
[http://www.metabase.com/](http://www.metabase.com/)

[EDIT] And yes, open source:
[https://github.com/metabase/metabase](https://github.com/metabase/metabase)

Also, we're hiring :)
[http://www.metabase.com/jobs/](http://www.metabase.com/jobs/) (frontend as
well, which is JS/React/Redux, not ClojureScript... yet)

~~~
kornish
Plus, the codebase is open-source:
[https://github.com/metabase/metabase](https://github.com/metabase/metabase)

------
jraines
At Stylitics, we use Clojure & ClojureScript to automate building outfits from
retailers' product catalogs, arranging them in a visually appealing collage
image, serving those to their product pages and track engagement & other
analytics.

Biggest wins for me:

1\. Reagent - building UIs has never been easier for me

2\. Figwheel - I know hot-reload can be had with other tools & languages, but
it's so nice to have and especially when integrated with your REPL

3\. Concurrency - lots to say here, but coming from Ruby, literally just
`pmap` alone is awesome, haha.

4\. Deploying an uberjar is easy

5\. compojure-api is a great way to build documented, live API docs/explorers

6\. integrant (or component) for building up & managing running systems out of
interdependent parts

That stuff's pretty basic but it's been a boon. There's a lot more cool stuff
that we've used in the past and/or hope to use in the future - core.logic or
constraint programming libraries for implementing rules & constraints,
core.async for various things (trying to be more judicious but it's definitely
useful), onyx for building distributed computation flows.

The biggest side benefit of working in Clojure, in my opinion, is training
your mind to think data-first and simplicity-first. This is kind of cliché,
but I've found it to be true and I feel like if I had to leave Clojure I'd be
more equipped than when I started to work with the types of systems the future
will need. But I'm hoping to stay :)

------
eigenhombre
OpinionLab has used Clojure in production since early 2014 for microservices,
ETL processes, analysis tasks and machine learning projects. We have a small
and enthusiastic team of polyglot Clojure developers and a weekly Clojure
study group, and are interested in growing that team. If that sounds
interesting and you live in the Chicago area, please do say hello at
clojure@opinionlab.com.

------
_kardan
Akvo [http://akvo.org](http://akvo.org) (Akvo is a not-for-profit foundation
that creates open source, internet and mobile software and sensors.) On
various projects ([https://github.com/akvo/akvo-
lumen](https://github.com/akvo/akvo-lumen), [https://github.com/akvo/akvo-
flow-api](https://github.com/akvo/akvo-flow-api),
[https://github.com/akvo/akvo-flow-services](https://github.com/akvo/akvo-
flow-services)).

------
diogok
Using clojure to provide extinction risk assessments for Brazilian flora
biodiversity, in a pipeline of data gathering, cleaning and geospatial
analysis.

[https://biodivdev.github.io](https://biodivdev.github.io)

Also, on the Clojure website there are featured stories and a list of
companies using it:

[https://clojure.org/community/success_stories](https://clojure.org/community/success_stories)
[https://clojure.org/community/companies](https://clojure.org/community/companies)

------
puredanger
Lots of examples:

Companies -
[https://clojure.org/community/companies](https://clojure.org/community/companies)

Success stories -
[https://clojure.org/community/success_stories](https://clojure.org/community/success_stories)

Community stories (interview style) -
[https://clojure.org/community/community_stories](https://clojure.org/community/community_stories)

------
frozenfire92
Pretty sure Clubhouse [https://clubhouse.io](https://clubhouse.io) has their
backend in Clojure

~~~
jeffreysmith
Totally! And their frontend from what I know.

~~~
KingMob
IIRC from my conversation with their founder, the front-end is still pure js.

------
coltnz
SMX, ([http://smxemail.com](http://smxemail.com)) in Auckland, New Zealand.
We're an email security / email hosting provider and have been using Clojure
for 5ish years.

We use Clojure for our custom big data platform, Clojurescript for our DLP
rules engine embedded in the mail flow (via SpiderMonkey) and our new ISP
portal.

------
minikomi
I'm using it at work (small design studio) for frontend development, when
appropriate. Also for small side projects I want to exist. eg. quick tumblr
image search [http://poyo.co/tumblr/](http://poyo.co/tumblr/) (shift-submit
for username, "g" changes grid layout)

Just started using garden for css - having an actual language to generate css,
along with namespaces is a boon and I wish I'd started sooner.

Boot, cljs, garden and, depending on project, clojure on the serverside too.
Sharing reagent components w/ hiccup for serverside rendering using cljc (cljs
/ clj shared files) works quite well. There's a little you you have to
replicate at the top level of components to pass data down, but reader
conditionals can get you quite far.

------
mluisbrown
Credit Suisse has a major part of their Risk system written in Clojure and
ClojureScript.

------
dkersten
My team in ViaSat's Irish office use Clojure, mostly for the testing
infrastructure (Clojure's generative testing tools are incredibly useful for
us), although we foresee it being used a lot more for upcoming projects.

We're also hiring :)

------
simonb
My (ex-)team at [https://www.goopti.com](https://www.goopti.com) used Clojure
for the entire data infrastructure, all the machine learning and exploratory
data science.

I've given a couple of talks about our experience:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GLXmGeuoOU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GLXmGeuoOU)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtmggfGD3RQ&index=6&list=PLe...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtmggfGD3RQ&index=6&list=PLetHPRQvX4a_jQjvn54Q-d1WYZ52nDfnT)

------
lkrubner
I wrote about my experience at an NLP startup that used Clojure, and my blog
post was discussed on Hacker News here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10662128](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10662128)

My blog post doesn't go into architectural details, but our architecture was
nearly the same as that described by Matthias Nehlsen here:

[http://matthiasnehlsen.com/blog/2014/11/07/Building-
Systems-...](http://matthiasnehlsen.com/blog/2014/11/07/Building-Systems-in-
Clojure-4/)

------
AutomateTheWeb
I learned clojure to use it with Datomic, which built an audit trail of every
operation on the database.

I really enjoyed using clojure, I felt it boosted productivity but it also
came with a huge learning curve. However, overtime, I found that I could map
my thoughts to clojure a lot more easier than with other languages like
Javascript and Python.

However, I fear that the rarity of clojure developers also means paying a
premium. ES6 also makes it hard to leave the Javascript ecosystem.

For financial startups with money, clojure and datomic will be the go to
stack. Maybe I'll open source the luminus project I built for a small bank.

------
marianoguerra
the payment and data integration services of instadeq[1] are implemented in
clojure (component, immutant, bidi, cheshire).

also the data integration backend (same stack as above), and it's frontend and
an admin interface for users, groups and permissions for event fabric[2]
(clojurescript, om.next, garden).

just to be clear, backend and frontend of both product aren't
clojure/clojurescript.

[1] [https://instadeq.com/](https://instadeq.com/) [2] [https://event-
fabric.com/](https://event-fabric.com/)

------
XPherior
Distributed Masonry uses Clojure to build Onyx [1], an open source distributed
batch and streaming platform. We also build a realtime application platform
named Pyroclast [2] directly on top of Onyx. Our code base is written entirely
in Clojure. The architecture we've ended up with is hands down the cleanest
I've ever worked on.

[1] [http://www.onyxplatform.org](http://www.onyxplatform.org) [2]
[http://pyroclast.io/](http://pyroclast.io/)

------
ludwigvan
We're using Clojure and ClojureScript to build a process management
application for enterprises. On the backend we use Ring, Bidi, Honeysql,
Postgresql; on the frontend, Rum (React wrapper).

Very pleased so far, though occasionally run into some issues. Will probably
consider Datomic at some point in the future, though wanted to stay
conservative on that front while we get the rest of the app up and running.

Getting started is pretty easy nowadays, especially on the frontend with
figwheel: `lein new figwheel my-app -- --rum`

------
mnm1
I just rewrote and am running a backend Clojure server (for about 2 years)
that does NLP processing (using Stanford Core NLP, a Java NLP framework) and
spell checking. Pretty soon, it will become a proxy server in front of our API
to handle proxy tasks (auth, rate limiting etc.) and to replace a lot of the
slow API functionality. I wish I could replace every other app too but for now
I'm just glad to have more Clojure work rewriting parts of the API.

------
coopsource
I'm using Clojure and ClojureScript for Co-op Source (a platform for building
software cooperatives) and have found it to be a great set of tools that keeps
everything simple and clean. While it is not public/production, it will be
soon ;-)

I've also started using ClojureCLR (via Arcadia) to build a VR/AR software
development environment for use with Co-op Source. Using a REPL within Unity3D
is awesome for prototyping.

------
spiralganglion
We're using ClojureScript at
[https://www.lunchboxsessions.com](https://www.lunchboxsessions.com) for
developer tooling, to build our interactive animations. It's a joy, and we're
eager to apply it to more problem domains.

I also use it on the side to make music (professionally, but not as a career).
Not sure if "live on stage" counts as "in production" ;)

~~~
IBCNU
Any links to your music?

~~~
spiralganglion
[http://ivanish.ca/diminished-fifth/](http://ivanish.ca/diminished-fifth/)

Runs in realtime in the browser. WIP, naturally. Works better on a computer,
but it should also play on mobile devices.

------
joncampbelldev
Using it wherever possible at my company.

We built an async rate limiting server to protect our APIs on a per ip/per
user/per customer basis. Much nicer language than node is which would be the
usual choice for async code. The aleph server library is amazing, thanks Zach
tellman.

We also built an internal management console for reporting on our customer
base as well as simplifying and auditing common support actions.

------
admay
I'm using it at work for front end work, GraphQL services, and cron jobs.

It's a great set up with GraphQL specifically since Walmart just release
Lacinia and Alumbra/Claro are coming into play as more mature libraries.

With the way that it's going at work lately, we're going to be using Clojure
much more in the future!

------
malatmals
Just a little reactive devcards app given a youtube url calls their api for
the title/time and spits out some html for use in a cms.
[https://ecampuscenter.github.io/#!/htmlms.youtube](https://ecampuscenter.github.io/#!/htmlms.youtube)

------
tosh
We're using Clojure, ClojureScript & Datomic at

[https://blossom.io](https://blossom.io) (project tracking)

[https://lemmings.io](https://lemmings.io) (incubator w/ focus on art &
artificial intelligence)

------
bsima
Liaison.com uses it for some microservices to store and analyze time-series
JSON data, kinda similar to Datomic, for enterprise customers. I interviewed
with Apple a few years ago (didn't get the job), they are using Clojure for
internal services to support the iTunes infrastructure.

------
blak3mill3r
At IRIS.TV we use Clojure & ClojureScript to

* power our data pipeline (precompiled Clojure on Apache Spark, + Kafka & Cassandra)

* build our internal configuration management and reporting tool (Clojure server, CLJS+React client)

* glue things together (microservices in Clojure)

* investigate systems and data (Clojure repl)

------
IBCNU
We use clojure on the backend and clojurescript as our admin ui across our
supply chain exchange at
[https://www.openmarketshealth.com](https://www.openmarketshealth.com)

------
vikeri
We're developing a smart pillbox with a mobile app written in ClojureScript
with React Native and a backend written in Clojure.
[http://pilloxa.com](http://pilloxa.com)

------
atroche
BookWell ( [https://www.bookwell.com.au/](https://www.bookwell.com.au/) ) uses
Clojure on the backend, ClojureScript on the front, and Datomic as the
database.

------
aisamu
We're using clojure both for new products and existing java codebases, and
we've just introduced clojurescript on a smallish SPA. Mostly health and
services sectors.

It's surprisingly boring (in the good sense).

------
bostonaholic
I'm using it for web development as well as backend services for large data
pipelines and some ETL. I've also used ClojureScript in production, for an
entire web stack built in Clojure(Script).

------
jstokes
We use lots of Clojure at Amperity -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BThkk5zv0DE&t=1s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BThkk5zv0DE&t=1s)

------
jeffreysmith
Intent Media ([http://intentmedia.com)'s](http://intentmedia.com\)'s) data
science functionality has a fair amount of Clojure behind the scenes.

------
jacquelineo
Kira Systems in Toronto uses it across the stack (web server, backend data
processing, and platform API and SDK, according to their website). Their
product analyzes contracts using machine learning.

------
jwr
I built PartsBox ([https://partsbox.io/](https://partsbox.io/)) using Clojure
and ClojureScript. Would be very difficult without them.

------
huahaiy
We use Clojure to build an AI platform, and we are hiring :)
[https://juji.io/fullstack](https://juji.io/fullstack)

------
pigs
We use Clojure extensively at Room Key. Our main web API, various scheduled
cron-like jobs, and AWS Lambda functions are all written in Clojure.

------
timgilbert
CircleCI uses ClojureScript and Om for their front-end (and I think Clojure on
the back-end too, though I don't have details).

------
projectileboy
I know of Walmart, and Siemens Rail Automation - North America.

------
147
Anybody hiring on a freelance/contract basis?

