That's not entirely accurate. An Elixir release compiled for the target platform can be bundled up in a tarball with everything it needs to run, including the

That's not entirely accurate. An Elixir release compiled for the target platform can be bundled up in a tarball with everything it needs to run, including the runtime. No Elixir install required. I do agree that pushing around a single binary in general is easier, all other things being equal.