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Crystal vs Rust: What are the differences?
Introduction
When comparing Crystal and Rust, it's important to understand the key differences between these two languages to determine which one is best suited for a specific project or use case.
Memory management: Crystal uses a garbage collector for automatic memory management, while Rust relies on a unique ownership system that ensures memory safety without the need for garbage collection. This gives Rust a performance advantage in situations where strict memory control is crucial.
Concurrency model: Rust emphasizes on thread safety with its ownership and borrowing system, making it easier to write concurrent and parallel programs. On the other hand, Crystal provides lightweight fibers for concurrency, which can be more approachable for developers new to concurrent programming.
Type system: Crystal features a more conventional object-oriented type system with static typing, similar to languages like Ruby. In contrast, Rust employs a strong static type system with lifetimes and borrowing rules, providing strict compile-time checks for memory safety and thread concurrency.
Error handling: Rust uses the Result type and the Option type to handle errors and nullable values, ensuring that errors are handled explicitly by the developer. In comparison, Crystal uses exceptions for error handling, which can simplify code but may also lead to unexpected behavior if not properly managed.
Community and ecosystem: Rust has a larger and more mature ecosystem with established libraries and tools for various use cases, making it easier to find support and resources for development. Crystal, while growing rapidly, has a smaller community and fewer libraries available, which can impact the ease of development in certain scenarios.
Compilation and performance: Rust's ahead-of-time compilation allows it to produce highly optimized and efficient code, making it a popular choice for system programming tasks. Crystal, with its Just-In-Time compilation, offers a smoother development experience with instant feedback, but may sacrifice some performance compared to Rust.
In Summary, understanding the key differences between Crystal and Rust in areas such as memory management, concurrency model, type system, error handling, community support, and compilation performance can help developers make an informed decision on which language to choose for their projects.
Hey, 👋
My name is Brayden. I’m currently a Frontend React Developer, striving to move into Fullstack so I can expand my knowledge.
For my main backend language, I am deciding between Python, Rust, and Go. I’ve tried each of them out for about an hour and currently, I like Python and Rust the most. However, I’m not sure if I’m missing out on something!
If anyone has advice on these technologies, I’d love to hear it!
Thanks.
Rust is still in low demand. It's a great language but you'll have a hard time finding jobs. Go is the mix of both Rust and Python. Great language with modern features, fast, scalable, fun to write, and at the same time it has high demand (not as much as python).
Python on the other hand is a language that you can't go wrong with. Look around you and see what your job market prefers. If there isn't much difference to you personally, pick the one with more demand.
All of these are solid options, however considering your expertise currently, I would probably suggest Node.JS considering your past experience with JS. However Python offers a similar development environment to JS in my opinion, and Go is a good sort of intermediate between Rust and Node.JS and Python. It's fast, but not as fast as Rust, and offers a development experience that combines C-styled languages (like Rust), and Python-y languages... So: Rust for the fastest, Node for familiarity, Python for ease of development, and Go for a good middle ground. I have used all in personal projects... If you use Go, I suggest a easy to use web server framework like Fiber.
Rust is a challenging choice, but worth to be chosen. It has strong memory-safety and type-safety, this gives you no bother about those errors. However, static typing languages often slow our developing speed down in early stage. In that case, it's effective to write prototype in an easy language like Python, and rewrite it in a hard language. It's important not to be afraid to throw away first code you write.
The other answers are excellent, but I want to be a bit of a contrarian and say you should learn Rust. While the number of jobs for it are (relatively) low(er), it is certainly expanding and you'd be surprised at which companies do use Rust (Discord, for example, is starting to move away from Golang to Rust!).
But the main reason is that learning Rust itself will teach you a lot about systems design (/backend) because of its borrow checker. You can try out a lot of ideas and make a lot mistakes and the borrow checker will always be there guide you to a better solution (thereby teaching you in the process).
Also, I wouldn't underestimated how important managing memory (and memory safety) is. While Golang is great in some ways, it doesn't protect you from pushing memory leaks into production. And eventually you'll come upon a scenario where you'll have to make your Python code run faster and the optimizations you'd have to do won't look pretty (or be very Pythontic).
And Rust is freakin fast! If you have Rust, you wouldn't need any other language for the backend (or any other systems level code). Check this blog post: https://blog.discord.com/why-discord-is-switching-from-go-to-rust-a190bbca2b1f?gi=dd8bc5d669d. Discord found that even after spending months optimizing Golang code it still wasn't fast enough. But unoptimized, first-draft Rust code was (is) faster by an order of magnitude!
I was thinking about adding a new technology to my current stack (Ruby and JavaScript). But, I want a compiled language, mainly for speed and scalability reasons compared to interpreted languages. I have tried each one (Rust, Java, and Kotlin). I loved them, and I don't know which one can offer me more opportunities for the future (I'm in my first year of software engineering at university).
Which language should I choose?
I will highly recommend Kotlin. I have worked with all three intensely and so far the development speed and simplicity is the best with Kotlin. Kotlin supports coroutines out of the box. Now, it isn't something that can't be implemented in other languages but Kotlin makes it super easy to work with them. Kotlin has a bit of learning curve, so, by the time you can actually use it idiomatically chances are that you will get proficient in Java too. But once you get it, you get it, then there is no other language ;) Kotlin is backed by Google and Jetbrains team so you can expect latest programming features and good community support.
If you want a compiled language then go for Rust. It takes a certain mindset to get your head around its memory management system and the way it handles "borrowed" memory. However, it will generate blindingly fast code that you can cross-compile for other platforms. As a systems programming language I highly recommend it. Take time and learn it.
Java is only compiled to bytecode, not to machine code. So it executes in the Java Virtual Machine. DOn't think that its not fast, because the latest incarnation are very fast indeed. For most practical purposes, users of your code won't notice any difference. There are a heck of a lot of features in Java that you either have to import via crates in Rust, or write yoursef. So productivity-wise, Java may well beat Rust.
Kotlin is a Java-lookalike. It's a nice, and succinct version of Java and is totally interoperable. But its a bit niche, and for me it fails because my dev environment of choice (Spring Tool Suite) doesn't really play well with Kotlin. To use it you would be well advised to use iDeaj. I have used kotlin, and I like it, but not enough to ditch all my Java code.
Other contenders, depending on your platform of choice are Golang, C, C++, and C# (available as Mono on Linux systems).
I use Rust and Java and if you need a compiled language I recommend Rust.
I'd say Rust's knowledge will be more valuable in comparison. You can work in Blockchain development, compile to WASM (WebAssembly). There is a new JavaScript/TypeScript runtime named Deno (by the creator of Node.js) that has its backend in Rust.
As you certainly know, there are languages that compile in meta-code for Virtual Machines (Java, C#, Kotlin) and languages that compile in Machine Language (Go, Rust). Apart specific domains (blockchain, IoT embedded software, AI, cloud) almost no-one uses languages that compile in machine language, for a series of reason, most of all security and portability. So, if you are going to learn for business go with Kotlin - Java is a bit ancien regime. If you seriously need to learn a language that compiles in ML - for example you will code for IoT - go with Go - or Rust - but keep in mind that Rust is much less used than Go. PS: Kotlin also compiles in ML, but I would choose a language designed for that, instead of one that compiles "also" in ML. PPS: Some Virtual Machines - ie: GraalVM - allow you to compile Java in ML. The world of IT is beautiful.
It depends on which level and use cases you prefer to work at. Close to the machine? Rust is great but if you need to find more job opportunities, then take C/C++. Java has many job positions but I suggest Kotlin over it. Think about it as a better Java, but fewer job positions. Do you want to do your own projects? So a productive language like Ruby is way better. Like to program front-end apps? Take JS. Find your passion.
All those are nice languages, but Rust is harder to learn properly and has a smaller ecosystem. If you want to work in system programming (like hardware drivers) Rust is probably your choice. Otherwise, Java/Kotlin ecosystem is much larger and gives much more possibilities (maybe excluding low-level system programming).
When talking about Kotlin and Java, both are good. But Kotlin, again, gives much more opportunities. Kotlin-JS gives you browser applications, Kotlin-Native allows to compile to native application (and interop with them). Kotlin-WASM will be available shortly. Rust is better than Kotlin-Native for native development tight now, but not by far and it makes sense only if you are focusing only on native development.
I'd recommend you to take a look at Java and Kotlin, the first due to the number of companies that actively use it in your products. Kotlin is gaining adept since it is fully compatibly with the Java ecosystem but usually requires less code to do the same (ignoring other benefits of the language). Another benefits of the Kotlin is that it is in fact multiplatform, where you could use the same syntax to code for mobile, web and backend applications. The drawback of Kotlin, is the number of open jobs that exists currently compared to Java, but I pretty sure that it will change in the near future.
I would go with Kotlin. It is pretty hyped currently.
You can use Kotlin for a lot of application types. To name some:
- Kotlin Multiplatform with Gradle
- Ktor (https://ktor.io)
- Spring Boot
- Kotlin JS (as you already know Javascript, you might like this one)
The code is also really concise, readable and modern. It also provides many features that you will find in many other programming languages.
I am a beginner, and I am totally confused, which of these 3 languages to learn first. Go, Rust, or Python. As my studies are going which of them will be easy to learn with studies that is, I can learn and do my studies also. Which one of them will be easily handled with my studies, and will be much much useful in future?
Python is a great language to learn as a beginner. However, Go is really easy to learn as well and has a much more powerful standard library that will allow you to build very complex and powerful applications in the future. Go is becoming a standard in Cloud computing and concurrency. Both of which are very advanced but important.
I'd definitely start with Go. I know Python, Go and quite a few other languages.
Rust is not easy to learn as a beginner.
Python has way too many features to be called "easy" to learn. While it is very forgiving to beginner mistakes it feels like playing in a puddle of mud. It does not teach you clean programming at all. Unless of course you like messy.
Go on the other hand is very easy to learn. As a professional you can learn the entire language in under 2 hours. I have already given the tour of Go (https://tour.golang.org/) to complete beginners and they went through it very thoroughly and thereby knew the entire Go language in less than 5 days. While it is very easy to learn and very easy to read, it is quite strict on other things, guiding you to write clean code. For one it is a typed language and it is good to learn very early about types.
Knowing the entire language is of course not all there is to know. There is the standard library and a lot of other libraries to get to know in every language. Also one has to learn patterns in every language, get experience on how to structure code, dig deeper into the language itself to understand its inner workings, etc. That takes years in every language.
That being said, it depends very much on what you want to do with a language. If you want to go into ML and science you definitely need Python. If you want to go into cloud computing, distributed servers (which in my opinion any server should be nowadays), use Go. If you want to do systems level programming, e.g in hardware programming, use Rust.
I have experience in all three languages, and you should learn python first. These are three different languages (read: tools) to solve different problems you may have. Python is a high level language you can use for writing cross-platform scripts, web servers, AI, websites (e.g. Django) and the list goes on. Python can be used for most programming tasks while being the easiest to learn of the three and probably the most productive as well.
A lot of tech companies start out with Python for their web services, but due to Pythons slow speed and the pain that comes with dynamically typed languages when the code base grows, switch to Go later on when they need to scale. Go is a systems language that thrives when used for high performance cloud/web or networking services. Go is used in performance critical networking situations such as Twitch's streaming services and Uber's geofence services. It's also very clean and simple syntax that makes it very easy to quickly understand what code does.
Python is an interpreted language and Go is a garbage collected language, but Rust is a highly performant and reliable compiled programming language without the extra baggage of runtime memory management. Rust forces you to follow coding patterns that assure memory safety. This makes Rust a perfect fit for high performance algorithms, game engines or safety-critical systems, but would be overkill for web servers or scripts on modern hardware.
Rust is probably a bad choice for starting out. It is a low level language where garbage collection is not done automatically, and has to get you thinking about all the technical aspects. It is statically typed and compiled, so it's very strict with how you code. I do love Rust though, it's a nice language. Golang is also compiled and statically typed, but it aims to be for quick development, which makes it a better choice for starting out.
Python though can be great for starting out and getting a hold on how to program. You don't need to worry about things such as types, garbage collection, or an overwhelming amount of data types. Since I'm a JavaScript fanboy I can't help but say another great popular choice to start is JavaScript 😁
If all you want is a gentle intro and have access to tools and libs that can help with your tasks, Python is the way to go. It's ecosystem is huge and the language is easy to pick up. However, if you are aiming to get into software industry, I'd highly recommend you also pick up another classic language like C++/C#/Java. It really helps you cement some CS & programming fundamentals and get more familiar with the concept of software design and software architecture. Not saying you cannot achieve good architecture in Python or Go, but traditionally you have more materials covering these classic OOP languages. And once you learn them, you can apply your knowledge to other languages and it helps you understand other languages faster.
If you start learning programming I'd suggest Python language. I have no experience with Go and Rust so I cannot give you advice for them.
Python has the broadest reach as it's been around the longest; rust is much more difficult for a beginner to learn; I work with Go every day and it's probably the most productive general use language.
Python is the easiest of the languages to learn, and while the slowest in production, it will teach many of the basic fundamental concepts of programming, especially if you're not going to be doing anything low level or at a system level.
Python is the best programming language for starting out as it is quite easy to learn, but it also is very powerful and you can do plenty with it. It will be useful for a long time. Python is my recommendation.
Study, machine learning = Python | High performance computing, safety-oriented programming = Rust | Backend, feel productive with less runtime performance drawback = Go
Go and Python are going to be much easier to learn than Rust. The memory management for Rust is pretty hard to wrap your head around when you are first learning how to do basic things with the language. Get familiar with programming first, then learn Rust.
I agree with most of the other answers here. Python is the best choice because it is super user-friendly, has an easy syntax, and can do many complex things in relatively fewer lines.
While Rust is a more recent and a great language nonetheless, it is slightly more complicated as it involves compiling and the syntax isn't so great.
And Go is the not a great choice either. While it has a decent syntax, keep in mind that Go won't be of much use unless you plan on working in Google. Even if you want to learn it, you can do so later.
I hope this helped you in making your decision, and welcome to the world of programming! I hope you enjoy.
Learn/start with C; don't rush after buzz words. Python is easy to learn but you would not get the underpinnings of memory and pointers, an important aspect of programming.
Python, because its the easiest to learn as a beginer. Its often called "English without grammar" because its terms and writing style is quite similar to English. Python also has a diverse range of applications like Web App, Desktop App, Data Science etc
Python is a great language to start programming with, there is an awesome python course on coursera by Dr. Charles Severance called Programming for everybody, check it out :)
I'd choose python because with a good knowledge of python and it's libraries, you could do literally anything. Also it has a relatively simple structure, so it won't be tough for a beginner.
Later on if you wish to learn Rust and Go, please do by all means.
So, I've been working with all 3 languages JavaScript, Python and Rust, I know that all of these languages are important in their own domain but, I haven't took any of it to the point where i could say I'm a pro at any of these languages. I learned JS and Python out of my own excitement, I learned rust for some IoT based projects. just confused which one i should invest my time in first... that does have Job and freelance potential in market as well...
I am an undergraduate in computer science. (3rd Year)
I would start focusing on Javascript because even working with Rust and Python, you're always going to encounter some Javascript for front-ends at least. It has: - more freelancing opportunities (starting to work short after a virus/crisis, that's gonna help) - can also do back-end if needed (I would personally avoid specializing in this since there's better languages for the back-end part) - hard to avoid. it's everywhere and not going away (well not yet)
Then, later, for back-end programming languages, Rust seems like your best bet. Its pros: - it's satisfying to work with (after the learning curve) - it's got potential to grow big in the next year (also with better paying jobs) - it's super versatile (you can do high-perf system stuff, graphics, ffi, as well as your classic api server) It comes with a few cons though: - it's harder to learn (expect to put in years) - the freelancing options are virtually non-existent (and I would expect them to stay limited, as rust is better for long-term software than prototypes)
I suggest you to go with JavaScript. From my perspective JavaScript is the language you should invest your time in. The community of javascript and lots of framework helps developer to build what they want to build in no time whether it a desktop, web, mobile based application or even you can use javascript as a backend as well. There are lot of frameworks you can start learning i suggest you to go with (react,vue) library both are easy to learn than angular which is a complete framework.
And if you want to go with python as a secondary tool then i suggest you to learn a python framework (Flask,Django).
#rust #elixir So am creating a messenger with voice call capabilities app which the user signs up using phone number and so at first i wanted to use Actix so i learned Rust so i thought to myself because well its first i felt its a bit immature to use actix web even though some companies are using Rust but we cant really say the full potential of Rust in a full scale app for example in Discord both Elixir and Rust are used meaning there is equal need for them but for Elixir so many companies use it from Whatsapp, Wechat, etc and this means something for Rust is not ready to go full scale we cant assume all this possibilities when it come Rust. So i decided to go the Erlang way after alot of Thinking so Do you think i made the right decision?Am 19 year programmer so i assume am not experienced as you so your answer or comment would really valuable to me
Context: Writing an open source CLI tool.
Go and Rust over Python: Simple distribution.
With Go and Rust, just build statically compiled binaries and hand them out.
With Python, have people install with "pip install --user" and not finding the binaries :(.
Go and Rust over Python: Startup and runtime performance
Go and Rust over Python: No need to worry about which Python interpreter version is installed on the users' machines.
Go over Rust: Simplicity; Rust's memory management comes at a development / maintenance cost.
Go over Rust: Easier cross compiles from macOS to Linux.
We have a lot of experience in JavaScript, writing our services in NodeJS allows developers to transition to the back end without any friction, without having to learn a new language. There is also the option to write services in TypeScript, which adds an expressive type layer. The semi-shared ecosystem between front and back end is nice as well, though specifically NodeJS libraries sometimes suffer in quality, compared to other major languages.
As for why we didn't pick the other languages, most of it comes down to "personal preference" and historically grown code bases, but let's do some post-hoc deduction:
Go is a practical choice, reasonably easy to learn, but until we find performance issues with our NodeJS stack, there is simply no reason to switch. The benefits of using NodeJS so far outweigh those of picking Go. This might change in the future.
PHP is a language we're still using in big parts of our system, and are still sometimes writing new code in. Modern PHP has fixed some of its issues, and probably has the fastest development cycle time, but it suffers around modelling complex asynchronous tasks, and (on a personal note) lack of support for writing in a functional style.
We don't use Python, Elixir or Ruby, mostly because of personal preference and for historic reasons.
Rust, though I personally love and use it in my projects, would require us to specifically hire for that, as the learning curve is quite steep. Its web ecosystem is OK by now (see https://www.arewewebyet.org/), but in my opinion, it is still no where near that of the other web languages. In other words, we are not willing to pay the price for playing this innovation card.
Haskell, as with Rust, I personally adore, but is simply too esoteric for us. There are problem domains where it shines, ours is not one of them.
I chose Golang as a language to write Tango because it's super easy to get started with. I also considered Rust, but learning curve of it is much higher than in Golang. I felt like I would need to spend an endless amount of time to even get the hello world app working in Rust. While easy to learn, Golang still shows good performance, multithreading out of the box and fun to implement.
I also could choose PHP and create a phar-based tool, but I was not sure that it would be a good choice as I want to scale to be able to process Gbs of access log data
Pros of Crystal
- Compiles to efficient native code38
- Ruby inspired syntax36
- Performance oriented - C-like speeds32
- Gem-like packages, called Shards23
- Can call C code using Crystal bindings20
- Super Fast18
- Typed Ruby <318
- Open Source17
- Minimal Runtime14
- Cute11
- Clean code9
- Concurrent9
- Productive9
- Great community4
- Powerful2
- Program compiled into a single binary2
- Simplicity2
- Meta-Programming (via Macros)2
- Feels like duck types, safe like static types2
- Null Safety2
- Type inference2
- Has builtin LLVM support library1
- Statically linked binaries that are simple to deploy1
- Fun to write1
- High-performance1
- Simple, minimal syntax1
- Compile time statically safe macros1
- Concise1
- Statically Safe Monkey Patching1
- Fibers1
- Spawn1
- Meta-programming1
- Productivity1
- Elegant1
- Cross-platform1
Pros of Rust
- Guaranteed memory safety145
- Fast132
- Open source88
- Minimal runtime75
- Pattern matching72
- Type inference63
- Algebraic data types57
- Concurrent57
- Efficient C bindings47
- Practical43
- Best advances in languages in 20 years37
- Safe, fast, easy + friendly community32
- Fix for C/C++30
- Stablity25
- Zero-cost abstractions24
- Closures23
- Extensive compiler checks20
- Great community20
- Async/await18
- No NULL type18
- Completely cross platform: Windows, Linux, Android15
- No Garbage Collection15
- Great documentations14
- High-performance14
- Generics12
- Super fast12
- High performance12
- Safety no runtime crashes11
- Fearless concurrency11
- Compiler can generate Webassembly11
- Macros11
- Guaranteed thread data race safety11
- Helpful compiler10
- RLS provides great IDE support9
- Prevents data races9
- Easy Deployment9
- Real multithreading8
- Painless dependency management8
- Good package management7
- Support on Other Languages5
- Type System1
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Cons of Crystal
- Small community13
- No windows support3
- No Oracle lib1
Cons of Rust
- Hard to learn28
- Ownership learning curve24
- Unfriendly, verbose syntax12
- High size of builded executable4
- Many type operations make it difficult to follow4
- No jobs4
- Variable shadowing4
- Use it only for timeoass not in production1