I definitely think Clojure is the sweet spot. It isn't easy to learn, but it is extremely simple to architecture things once you get how things are supposed to

I definitely think Clojure is the sweet spot. It isn't easy to learn, but it is extremely simple to architecture things once you get how things are supposed to work. I've done plenty of pure Clojure projects, and am also on a large, heavily-Java-iterop project and Java is great for perf but also Clojure is still extremely fast. Things tend to get wayyy better when you start ripping the Java code out except for where you really need it.