Comment by pron

BEAM is a wonderful VM, but calling it "optimized" for anything is problematic. It has focused on certain use cases, but it's seen less than 1% of the investment in the JDK, so I guess it's better to call it "specialized". While it works well enough for many things, its performance is like the JVM limping on both legs after a terrible car accident and a bad case of pneumonia while trying to walk on an icy road. You are correct, though, that it probably performs better than a general-purpose platform with a similar level of investment.