The language that replaced C++ where failure is unacceptable.
Rust was voted the most admired language on Stack Overflow for 10 consecutive years (2016–2025). But admiration doesn't matter. What matters: Linux kernel, Windows kernel, Android, Firefox, Cloudflare, Discord, Figma, and the JavaScript build tools you use every day are all Rust now.
First Rust merged into Linux 6.1 (Dec 2022). Drivers, filesystems, and modules. The biggest systems project on Earth is adopting Rust.
Linus Torvalds · 2022Microsoft is booting Windows 11 with Rust inside. Rewriting kernel components from C++ to Rust for memory safety.
Microsoft · 202421% of all new native code in Android 13+ is Rust. Keystore2, UWB stack, DNS-over-HTTP3, Virtualization Framework — all Rust.
Google · 2022The CSS engine (Stylo) and layout engine (Servo) are Rust. Firefox's most performance-critical path runs Rust, not C++.
Mozilla · 2017Google is integrating Rust into Chrome for security-critical components. Memory-safe code where exploits are most dangerous.
Google · 2023Ubuntu 25.10 ships sudo-rs (Rust sudo) by default. Canonical is replacing C utilities with Rust equivalents.
Canonical · 2025The default bundler in Next.js 16. 2-5x faster production builds, 10x faster Fast Refresh. Replaced webpack for Vercel's ecosystem.
Vercel · 2022The dev server and build tool used by 31M+ weekly downloads. Vite 8 ships Rolldown as its default bundler — the entire pipeline is now Rust: Oxc parses, Rolldown bundles, Oxc minifies. One team, one toolchain, one AST.
VoidZero / Cloudflare · 2026The Rust bundler that replaced both esbuild and Rollup inside Vite. Rollup plugin API compatible. 10-30x faster than Rollup. Shipped 1.0 stable May 2026. Also powers Vitest's build pipeline.
VoidZero / Cloudflare · 2026Speedy Web Compiler. Transpiler and minifier 20-70x faster than Babel. Powers Next.js, Deno, and Parcel.
Vercel · 2020First JS/TS linter with type-aware linting without tsc. Replaces ESLint + Prettier. GritQL plugins, monorepo support.
Community · 2023The parser, transformer, linter, and formatter at the heart of VoidZero. Oxfmt: 100% Prettier compatibility at 30x speed. Oxlint used by Shopify, Airbnb, and Mercedes-Benz. Shares one AST with Rolldown and Vite — no re-parsing.
VoidZero / Cloudflare · 2023Full webpack API compatibility at Rust speed. Hit 1.0 in Aug 2024. Used by TikTok, Discord, Microsoft, Amazon.
ByteDance · 2023CSS parser, transformer, bundler, and minifier. The CSS engine inside Tailwind CSS v4. 5-8x faster builds.
Surma / Google · 2022Monorepo build system. Incremental builds, remote caching, parallel task execution. The standard for JS monorepos.
Vercel · 2021Replaced Nginx. 70% less CPU, 67% less memory. Handles 35M+ requests/sec across Cloudflare's entire edge network.
Cloudflare · 2024MicroVM runtime for Lambda and Fargate. Sub-125ms cold starts. Rust's zero-cost abstractions make it possible.
AWS · 2018Switched from Go to Rust for read states. Tail latency dropped from 6ms spikes to 300μs. No more GC pauses.
Discord · 2020Rewrote multiplayer server from TypeScript to Rust. 10x throughput. Real-time collaboration at Figma's scale.
Figma · 2022Rewrote the heart of the sync engine from Python to Rust. Predictable performance, no GC pauses, smaller binaries.
Dropbox · 2016High-throughput observability pipeline. Collects, transforms, and routes logs, metrics, and traces. Datadog's edge data layer.
Datadog · 2019Distributed transactional key-value store. The storage engine behind TiDB. CNCF graduated project.
PingCAP · 2017Document + graph database with SQL-like queries. Real-time subscriptions. Multi-tenant by design.
SurrealDB · 2022Serverless PostgreSQL. Separates storage and compute. Branching, autoscaling, and instant restore — all Rust.
Neon · 2021Embedded analytical database. Core query engine uses Rust for performance-critical paths. The SQLite for analytics.
DuckDB Labs · 2023The next-gen storage engine for InfluxDB. Arrow + DataFusion + Rust. Time-series at scale.
InfluxData · 2021Streaming database. SQL streaming with PostgreSQL wire compatibility. The "Snowflake for streaming."
RisingWave Labs · 2022Replaced grep. Blazingly fast recursive search. Used by VS Code, GitHub, and every Rust developer on Earth.
Andrew Gallant · 2016Replaced find. Simple, fast, user-friendly. Color output, smart defaults, ignore rules.
Jacob Gundersen · 2017Replaced cat. Syntax highlighting, git integration, automatic paging. The cat with wings.
David Peter · 2018Replaced ls. Modern listing with colors, git status, tree view, and recursive display.
Ben Sago · 2018GPU-accelerated terminal emulator. The fastest terminal on any OS. Cross-platform.
Christian Duerr · 2017GPU-accelerated terminal with Lua config, multiplexer, and tabs. Cross-platform, SSH-aware.
Wez Furlong · 2020Terminal workspace with sessions, panes, and floating windows. The tmux alternative for Rust devs.
Aram Drevekenin · 2021Structured data shell. Commands work on tables, not text. The PowerShell reimagined for Unix.
Jonathan Turner · 2019Cross-shell prompt. Fast, minimal, customizable. Written once, works in bash/zsh/fish/powershell.
Matthias Endler · 2019The Rust language server. IDE support for Rust. Itself a large Rust codebase — Rust eating itself.
Rust Team · 2019Blazing fast terminal file manager. Async I/O throughout. Handles 100k+ file directories.
sxyazi · 2023Development tool manager. Replaces nvm, pyenv, rbenv, goenv. One tool for all runtime versions.
Jeff Dickey · 2024Production-grade WebAssembly runtime. Bytecode Alliance project. Runs WASI workloads in cloud and edge.
Bytecode Alliance · 2019WebAssembly runtime with package manager (WAPM). Run WASM anywhere — browser, server, IoT, blockchain.
Wasmer · 2019Interop layer between Rust and JavaScript. The bridge that makes Rust-in-the-browser practical.
Rust+Wasm Team · 2018Parallel CSS styling engine. Processes stylesheets across all CPU cores. Replaced the old C++ CSS engine.
Mozilla · 2017Password manager core logic rewritten in Rust. Cross-platform: browser extensions, desktop, mobile — all Rust.
1Password · 2019The Rust implementation of Tor. Replacing the C Tor daemon. Memory safety for anonymity software.
Tor Project · 2022Brave browser uses Rust for ad-blocking engine and privacy-critical components.
Brave Software · 2020Data-driven game engine. ECS architecture. The most popular Rust game engine. Growing fast.
Cart · 2020Feature-rich 3D game engine with editor. Scene editor, physics, animation, UI — production-ready.
Dmitry Stepanov · 2020Multiplayer voxel RPG. Open-source Minecraft-like game. Community-driven, multiplayer-first.
Veloren Team · 2018Minimalist ML framework by Hugging Face. Tensor operations in pure Rust. WASM-compatible.
Hugging Face · 2023Deep learning framework. Flexible, dynamic graph computation. GPU and CPU backends.
Louis Tech · 2023Scikit-learn for Rust. Machine learning algorithms. Classification, clustering, dimensionality reduction.
Rust-ML · 2019High-performance blockchain. 65,000 TPS. The entire validator client is Rust. Where throughput matters most.
Solana Labs · 2018JavaScript/TypeScript runtime. Written in Rust + TypeScript. Formatter, linter, and bundler — all Rust.
Ryan Dahl · 2018Docker is adopting Rust for performance-critical components. The container ecosystem is going multi-language.
Docker Inc. · 2023HTTP/3 and QUIC implementation. Powers Cloudflare's HTTP/3 support. The cutting edge of web transport.
Cloudflare · 2019Open-source developer platform and workflow engine. Fast script execution, built for internal tools.
Windmill Labs · 2022Rust is becoming the language AI coding agents write best. Fast compilation, strong types, no runtime errors.
Anthropic · 2025Source control (Mononoke, Eden) handles billions of files. Buck2 build system. Rust at massive scale.
Android, Chromium, Fuchsia. 21% of Android native code is Rust. Largest corporate Rust contributor.
Windows kernel, Azure infrastructure, sudo-rs. Recommends Rust for all new systems code.
Firecracker, Bottlerocket, Lambda. AWS is Rust's biggest cloud adopter. Sponsors Rust Foundation.
Pingora, quiche, Oxy, Workers. The entire edge network — 35M+ req/sec — is Rust.
Using Rust in core OS components. Swift interop. Memory safety for the world's most valuable company.
Rust didn't ask permission. It just showed up and rewrote everything.
The Linux kernel. The Windows kernel. Android. Firefox. Cloudflare's entire edge. Discord's backend. Figma's multiplayer. Every JavaScript build tool you use. The tools that replaced grep, find, cat, and ls.
The borrow checker that terrified developers for a decade turned out to be the strictest code reviewer you'll ever have — running at compile time, for free.
Rust's lesson: Memory safety isn't a nice-to-have. It's the price of admission.