The C++ Actor Framework (CAF) has evolved from an experimental research project to a mature, production-ready domain specific language in C++. CAF supports type safety and flexible networking, implements the concepts of actor composition and message flows, and serves as a highly efficient fundament for concurrent and distributed applications. It is continuously deployed in research and commercial systems. In this paper, we first present a high-level overview of the framework and then focus on selected applications in security research and performance-critical commercial systems, all of which rely on specific characteristics of CAF.