You said: >I'd say if you know and like Rust, then Gleam should be easy to pick up but otherwise I'd try Elixir.
This is way too strong and narrow statement. Gleam is statically typed garbage collected language, closer to OCaml than Rust. Elixir if you like dynamically typed instead.
Obligatory comment that elixir is now gradually typed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48388324