Rust vs C++ for a new systems project — honest comparison_

Large Rust projects have notoriously slow compile times. Incremental compilation helps but a clean build of a big project can take minutes. C++ with modules (C++20) is catching up, but Rust's compile times remain a real productivity issue for large codebases.

Rust's unsafe blocks exist for a reason — sometimes you genuinely need to do things the borrow checker cannot verify. The key is that unsafe is explicit and bounded. Code reviewers know exactly where to look. In C++ everything is implicitly unsafe.

New project, greenfield, team willing to learn: Rust. Existing C++ codebase, tight deadline, team already productive in C++: modern C++. The best language is the one your team ships reliable code in.

Memory safety without GC, guaranteed by the compiler. Fearless concurrency. A package manager (Cargo) that actually works. The standard library is modern and consistent. Error handling with Result<T,E> is explicit and composable. For new projects these are significant advantages.