In Go I can create goroutines like this (EDITED as reported by kelu-thatsall 's answer):

// test.go
package main

import (
        "fmt"
        "os"
        "strconv"
        "sync"
        "runtime"
)

func main() {
        var wg sync.WaitGroup
        if len(os.Args) < 2 {
                os.Exit(1)
        }
        k, ok := strconv.Atoi(os.Args[1])
        if ok != nil {
                os.Exit(2)
        }
        wg.Add(k * 1000)
        for z := 0; z < k*1000; z++ {
            go func(x int) {
                    defer wg.Done()
                    fmt.Println(x)
            }(z)
            if z%k == k-1 {
                // @mattn: avoid busy loop, so Go can start processing like BEAM do 
                runtime.Gosched() 
            }
        }
        wg.Wait()
}

The result in Go 1.8.0 (64-bit):

# shell    
$ go build test.go ; for k in 5 50 500 5000 50000 500000; do echo -n $k; time ./test $k > /dev/null; done

5
CPU: 0.00s      Real: 0.00s     RAM: 2080KB
50
CPU: 0.06s      Real: 0.01s     RAM: 3048KB
500
CPU: 0.61s      Real: 0.12s     RAM: 7760KB
5000
CPU: 6.02s      Real: 1.23s     RAM: 17712KB # 17 MB
50000
CPU: 62.30s     Real: 12.53s    RAM: 207720KB # 207 MB
500000
CPU: 649.47s    Real: 131.53s   RAM: 3008180KB # 3 GB

What's the equivalent code in Erlang or Elixir? (EDITED as reported by patrick-oscity 's comment)
What I've tried so far is the following:

# test.exs
defmodule Recursion do
  def print_multiple_times(n) when n <= 1 do
    spawn fn -> IO.puts n end
  end

  def print_multiple_times(n) do
    spawn fn -> IO.puts n end
    print_multiple_times(n - 1)
  end
end

[x]=System.argv()
{k,_}=Integer.parse(x)
k=k*1000
Recursion.print_multiple_times(k)

The result in elixir 1.4.2 (erts-8.2.2):

# shell    
$ for k in 5 50 500 5000 50000 ; do echo -n $k; time elixir --erl "+P 90000000" test.exs $k > /dev/null; done

5
CPU: 0.53s      Real: 0.50s     RAM: 842384KB # 842 MB
50
CPU: 1.50s      Real: 0.62s     RAM: 934276KB # 934 MB
500
CPU: 11.92s     Real: 2.53s     RAM: 1675872KB # 1.6 GB
5000
CPU: 122.65s    Real: 20.20s    RAM: 4336116KB # 4.3 GB
50000
CPU: 1288.65s   Real: 209.66s   RAM: 6573560KB # 6.5 GB

But I'm not sure if the two are equivalent. Are they ?

• EDIT* Shortened version as mudasobwa 's comment does not give correct output

# test2.exs
[x]=System.argv()
{k,_}=Integer.parse(x)
k=k*1000
1..k |> Enum.each(fn n -> spawn fn -> IO.puts n end end)

The result for k in 5 50 500 5000 50000 ; do echo -n $k; time elixir --erl "+P 90000000" test.exs $k | wc -l ; done :

5
CPU: 0.35s      Real: 0.41s     RAM: 1623344KB # 1.6 GB
2826 # does not complete, this should be 5000
50
CPU: 1.08s      Real: 0.53s     RAM: 1691060KB # 1.6 GB
35062
500
CPU: 8.69s      Real: 1.70s     RAM: 2340200KB # 2.3 GB
373193
5000        
CPU: 109.95s    Real: 18.49s    RAM: 4980500KB # 4.9 GB
4487475
50000
erl_child_setup closed
Crash dump is being written to: erl_crash.dump...Command terminated by signal 9
CPU: 891.35s    Real: 157.52s   RAM: 24361288KB # 24.3 GB

Not testing 500m for elixir because it took too long and +P 500000000 argument is bad number of processes