Is Rust C++-fast? Benchmarking System Languages on Everyday Routines

TL;DR

This paper benchmarks Rust and C++ using common algorithms and data structures, showing Rust's performance is comparable to C++ with some routines being slightly faster.

Contribution

It provides a realistic performance comparison between Rust and C++ on everyday routines, addressing limitations of previous benchmarks.

Findings

Rust performance is similar to C++ overall.

Some Rust routines are slightly faster than C++.

Rust's memory ownership model does not hinder performance.

Abstract

Rust is a relatively new system programming language that has been experiencing a rapid adoption in the past 10 years. Rust incorporates a memory ownership model enforced at a compile time. Since this model involves zero runtime overhead, programs written in Rust are not only memory-safe but also fast, leading to performance comparable to C and C++. Multiple existing benchmarks comparing the performance of Rust with other languages focus on rarely used superficial algorithms, leading to somewhat inconclusive results. In this work, we conduct a comparative performance benchmark of Rust and C++ using commonly used algorithms and data structures rather than exotic ones. Our evaluation shows that the overall performance of Rust is similar to C++, with only minor disadvantage. We also demonstrate that in some Rust routines are slightly faster than the ones of C++.