Benchmarking with criterion.rs
Statistical benchmarking. This post digs into the topic, drawing on recent discussion from Hacker News, Reddit, and the wider community.
The conversation that prompted this post is linked in the sources. I have tried to capture the substance of the discussion rather than just summarize it, because the comments are usually where the real insight lives.
What happened
The borrow checker is not your enemy. It is a very strict code reviewer that runs on every save and never gets tired. Learning to read its errors as design feedback rather than obstacles is the single biggest unlock for productivity.
Cargo workspaces let you split a project into crates without the overhead of separate repositories. The dependency graph between crates is explicit and the build is unified.
Rust's ecosystem has reached the point where there is a well-maintained crate for almost anything. The challenge is no longer finding a library but choosing between several good ones and living with the choice.
The standard library is deliberately small. Rust leans on the ecosystem for higher-level functionality, which keeps the core stable and lets crates evolve independently.
The standard library is deliberately small. Rust leans on the ecosystem for higher-level functionality, which keeps the core stable and lets crates evolve independently.
Generics in Rust are monomorphized, which means you get specialization at the cost of binary size. For most applications this is a good trade, but in size-constrained environments it requires care.
Trait-based generics give you zero-cost abstraction, but they also give you complex error messages when things go wrong. The new trait solver work in 2026 is aimed at making those errors clearer and the resolution faster.
Error handling via Result and Option is verbose but honest. Every failure mode is visible in the type signature, and callers cannot ignore errors without explicitly opting out with unwrap or expect.
Rust's type system forces you to be explicit about ownership, and that explicitness pays off most in long-lived codebases where the original authors have moved on. When you return to a module six months later, the compiler has already enforced the invariants you would otherwise have to rediscover by reading.
Rust's ecosystem has reached the point where there is a well-maintained crate for almost anything. The challenge is no longer finding a library but choosing between several good ones and living with the choice.
Macros in Rust are powerful but should be used sparingly. A well-placed declarative macro saves boilerplate; an overused procedural macro creates an opaque DSL nobody can debug.
Error handling via Result and Option is verbose but honest. Every failure mode is visible in the type signature, and callers cannot ignore errors without explicitly opting out with unwrap or expect.
Cargo is the secret weapon. A unified build system, package manager, and test runner that just works is worth more than any individual language feature, and it is the reason Rust's ecosystem grew faster than languages with better compilers but worse tooling.
Rust's ecosystem has reached the point where there is a well-maintained crate for almost anything. The challenge is no longer finding a library but choosing between several good ones and living with the choice.
The borrow checker is not your enemy. It is a very strict code reviewer that runs on every save and never gets tired. Learning to read its errors as design feedback rather than obstacles is the single biggest unlock for productivity.
Why it matters
Error handling via Result and Option is verbose but honest. Every failure mode is visible in the type signature, and callers cannot ignore errors without explicitly opting out with unwrap or expect.
Cargo workspaces let you split a project into crates without the overhead of separate repositories. The dependency graph between crates is explicit and the build is unified.
Unsafe Rust is a feature, not a bug. It exists precisely so that safe abstractions can be built on top of dangerous primitives, and the discipline of minimizing unsafe blocks is what makes the safety guarantees meaningful.
Error handling via Result and Option is verbose but honest. Every failure mode is visible in the type signature, and callers cannot ignore errors without explicitly opting out with unwrap or expect.
Unsafe Rust is a feature, not a bug. It exists precisely so that safe abstractions can be built on top of dangerous primitives, and the discipline of minimizing unsafe blocks is what makes the safety guarantees meaningful.
Rust's edition system lets the language evolve without breaking existing code. Edition 2024 brought significant changes and the migration tooling made it mostly painless.
The standard library is deliberately small. Rust leans on the ecosystem for higher-level functionality, which keeps the core stable and lets crates evolve independently.
Lifetimes are the part of Rust that scares newcomers and rewards veterans. Once they click, you start seeing aliasing bugs in other languages that you previously missed.
Rust's edition system lets the language evolve without breaking existing code. Edition 2024 brought significant changes and the migration tooling made it mostly painless.
Unsafe Rust is a feature, not a bug. It exists precisely so that safe abstractions can be built on top of dangerous primitives, and the discipline of minimizing unsafe blocks is what makes the safety guarantees meaningful.
Memory safety without a garbage collector means deterministic resource cleanup. Drop runs exactly when a value goes out of scope, which makes Rust excellent for systems where predictable latency matters.
Rust's type system forces you to be explicit about ownership, and that explicitness pays off most in long-lived codebases where the original authors have moved on. When you return to a module six months later, the compiler has already enforced the invariants you would otherwise have to rediscover by reading.
Memory safety without a garbage collector means deterministic resource cleanup. Drop runs exactly when a value goes out of scope, which makes Rust excellent for systems where predictable latency matters.
The borrow checker is not your enemy. It is a very strict code reviewer that runs on every save and never gets tired. Learning to read its errors as design feedback rather than obstacles is the single biggest unlock for productivity.
Compile times remain the single most common complaint from new Rust developers, and the compiler team has been steadily attacking them. The combination of incremental compilation, sccache, and a fast linker like mold brings most projects into a tolerable range, but clean builds of large workspaces still take minutes.
Practical takeaways
- The borrow checker is not your enemy.
- Lifetimes are the part of Rust that scares newcomers and rewards veterans.
- Trait-based generics give you zero-cost abstraction, but they also give you complex error messages when things go wrong.
- Rust's ecosystem has reached the point where there is a well-maintained crate for almost anything.
- Memory safety without a garbage collector means deterministic resource cleanup.
- Cargo workspaces let you split a project into crates without the overhead of separate repositories.
- The borrow checker is not your enemy.
- Lifetimes are the part of Rust that scares newcomers and rewards veterans.
- Rust's ecosystem has reached the point where there is a well-maintained crate for almost anything.
- Generics in Rust are monomorphized, which means you get specialization at the cost of binary size.
Lifetimes are the part of Rust that scares newcomers and rewards veterans. Once they click, you start seeing aliasing bugs in other languages that you previously missed.
Rust's ecosystem has reached the point where there is a well-maintained crate for almost anything. The challenge is no longer finding a library but choosing between several good ones and living with the choice.
Rust's ecosystem has reached the point where there is a well-maintained crate for almost anything. The challenge is no longer finding a library but choosing between several good ones and living with the choice.
Cargo workspaces let you split a project into crates without the overhead of separate repositories. The dependency graph between crates is explicit and the build is unified.
Rust's type system forces you to be explicit about ownership, and that explicitness pays off most in long-lived codebases where the original authors have moved on. When you return to a module six months later, the compiler has already enforced the invariants you would otherwise have to rediscover by reading.
Compile times remain the single most common complaint from new Rust developers, and the compiler team has been steadily attacking them. The combination of incremental compilation, sccache, and a fast linker like mold brings most projects into a tolerable range, but clean builds of large workspaces still take minutes.
Unsafe Rust is a feature, not a bug. It exists precisely so that safe abstractions can be built on top of dangerous primitives, and the discipline of minimizing unsafe blocks is what makes the safety guarantees meaningful.
The borrow checker is not your enemy. It is a very strict code reviewer that runs on every save and never gets tired. Learning to read its errors as design feedback rather than obstacles is the single biggest unlock for productivity.
Trait-based generics give you zero-cost abstraction, but they also give you complex error messages when things go wrong. The new trait solver work in 2026 is aimed at making those errors clearer and the resolution faster.
Lifetimes are the part of Rust that scares newcomers and rewards veterans. Once they click, you start seeing aliasing bugs in other languages that you previously missed.
The borrow checker is not your enemy. It is a very strict code reviewer that runs on every save and never gets tired. Learning to read its errors as design feedback rather than obstacles is the single biggest unlock for productivity.
Unsafe Rust is a feature, not a bug. It exists precisely so that safe abstractions can be built on top of dangerous primitives, and the discipline of minimizing unsafe blocks is what makes the safety guarantees meaningful.
Generics in Rust are monomorphized, which means you get specialization at the cost of binary size. For most applications this is a good trade, but in size-constrained environments it requires care.
The standard library is deliberately small. Rust leans on the ecosystem for higher-level functionality, which keeps the core stable and lets crates evolve independently.
Error handling via Result and Option is verbose but honest. Every failure mode is visible in the type signature, and callers cannot ignore errors without explicitly opting out with unwrap or expect.
Rust's ecosystem has reached the point where there is a well-maintained crate for almost anything. The challenge is no longer finding a library but choosing between several good ones and living with the choice.
Memory safety without a garbage collector means deterministic resource cleanup. Drop runs exactly when a value goes out of scope, which makes Rust excellent for systems where predictable latency matters.
Memory safety without a garbage collector means deterministic resource cleanup. Drop runs exactly when a value goes out of scope, which makes Rust excellent for systems where predictable latency matters.
Error handling via Result and Option is verbose but honest. Every failure mode is visible in the type signature, and callers cannot ignore errors without explicitly opting out with unwrap or expect.
Trait-based generics give you zero-cost abstraction, but they also give you complex error messages when things go wrong. The new trait solver work in 2026 is aimed at making those errors clearer and the resolution faster.
Sources
This post is informed by discussion on bheisler.github.io and related threads on Hacker News and Reddit. Primary source: https://bheisler.github.io/criterion.rs/.
Cargo is the secret weapon. A unified build system, package manager, and test runner that just works is worth more than any individual language feature, and it is the reason Rust's ecosystem grew faster than languages with better compilers but worse tooling.
Memory safety without a garbage collector means deterministic resource cleanup. Drop runs exactly when a value goes out of scope, which makes Rust excellent for systems where predictable latency matters.
The borrow checker is not your enemy. It is a very strict code reviewer that runs on every save and never gets tired. Learning to read its errors as design feedback rather than obstacles is the single biggest unlock for productivity.
The borrow checker is not your enemy. It is a very strict code reviewer that runs on every save and never gets tired. Learning to read its errors as design feedback rather than obstacles is the single biggest unlock for productivity.
Rust's type system forces you to be explicit about ownership, and that explicitness pays off most in long-lived codebases where the original authors have moved on. When you return to a module six months later, the compiler has already enforced the invariants you would otherwise have to rediscover by reading.
Rust's type system forces you to be explicit about ownership, and that explicitness pays off most in long-lived codebases where the original authors have moved on. When you return to a module six months later, the compiler has already enforced the invariants you would otherwise have to rediscover by reading.
Unsafe Rust is a feature, not a bug. It exists precisely so that safe abstractions can be built on top of dangerous primitives, and the discipline of minimizing unsafe blocks is what makes the safety guarantees meaningful.
Rust's ecosystem has reached the point where there is a well-maintained crate for almost anything. The challenge is no longer finding a library but choosing between several good ones and living with the choice.
The standard library is deliberately small. Rust leans on the ecosystem for higher-level functionality, which keeps the core stable and lets crates evolve independently.
Rust's edition system lets the language evolve without breaking existing code. Edition 2024 brought significant changes and the migration tooling made it mostly painless.
Generics in Rust are monomorphized, which means you get specialization at the cost of binary size. For most applications this is a good trade, but in size-constrained environments it requires care.
Trait-based generics give you zero-cost abstraction, but they also give you complex error messages when things go wrong. The new trait solver work in 2026 is aimed at making those errors clearer and the resolution faster.
Cargo is the secret weapon. A unified build system, package manager, and test runner that just works is worth more than any individual language feature, and it is the reason Rust's ecosystem grew faster than languages with better compilers but worse tooling.
Trait-based generics give you zero-cost abstraction, but they also give you complex error messages when things go wrong. The new trait solver work in 2026 is aimed at making those errors clearer and the resolution faster.
Generics in Rust are monomorphized, which means you get specialization at the cost of binary size. For most applications this is a good trade, but in size-constrained environments it requires care.
Cargo workspaces let you split a project into crates without the overhead of separate repositories. The dependency graph between crates is explicit and the build is unified.
Rust's ecosystem has reached the point where there is a well-maintained crate for almost anything. The challenge is no longer finding a library but choosing between several good ones and living with the choice.
Macros in Rust are powerful but should be used sparingly. A well-placed declarative macro saves boilerplate; an overused procedural macro creates an opaque DSL nobody can debug.
The standard library is deliberately small. Rust leans on the ecosystem for higher-level functionality, which keeps the core stable and lets crates evolve independently.
The borrow checker is not your enemy. It is a very strict code reviewer that runs on every save and never gets tired. Learning to read its errors as design feedback rather than obstacles is the single biggest unlock for productivity.
Unsafe Rust is a feature, not a bug. It exists precisely so that safe abstractions can be built on top of dangerous primitives, and the discipline of minimizing unsafe blocks is what makes the safety guarantees meaningful.
Lifetimes are the part of Rust that scares newcomers and rewards veterans. Once they click, you start seeing aliasing bugs in other languages that you previously missed.
Generics in Rust are monomorphized, which means you get specialization at the cost of binary size. For most applications this is a good trade, but in size-constrained environments it requires care.
Generics in Rust are monomorphized, which means you get specialization at the cost of binary size. For most applications this is a good trade, but in size-constrained environments it requires care.
Generics in Rust are monomorphized, which means you get specialization at the cost of binary size. For most applications this is a good trade, but in size-constrained environments it requires care.
Unsafe Rust is a feature, not a bug. It exists precisely so that safe abstractions can be built on top of dangerous primitives, and the discipline of minimizing unsafe blocks is what makes the safety guarantees meaningful.
Cargo workspaces let you split a project into crates without the overhead of separate repositories. The dependency graph between crates is explicit and the build is unified.
Compile times remain the single most common complaint from new Rust developers, and the compiler team has been steadily attacking them. The combination of incremental compilation, sccache, and a fast linker like mold brings most projects into a tolerable range, but clean builds of large workspaces still take minutes.
Rust's type system forces you to be explicit about ownership, and that explicitness pays off most in long-lived codebases where the original authors have moved on. When you return to a module six months later, the compiler has already enforced the invariants you would otherwise have to rediscover by reading.
Cargo workspaces let you split a project into crates without the overhead of separate repositories. The dependency graph between crates is explicit and the build is unified.
Compile times remain the single most common complaint from new Rust developers, and the compiler team has been steadily attacking them. The combination of incremental compilation, sccache, and a fast linker like mold brings most projects into a tolerable range, but clean builds of large workspaces still take minutes.
The borrow checker is not your enemy. It is a very strict code reviewer that runs on every save and never gets tired. Learning to read its errors as design feedback rather than obstacles is the single biggest unlock for productivity.
Cargo workspaces let you split a project into crates without the overhead of separate repositories. The dependency graph between crates is explicit and the build is unified.
Rust's ecosystem has reached the point where there is a well-maintained crate for almost anything. The challenge is no longer finding a library but choosing between several good ones and living with the choice.
Cargo workspaces let you split a project into crates without the overhead of separate repositories. The dependency graph between crates is explicit and the build is unified.
Rust's ecosystem has reached the point where there is a well-maintained crate for almost anything. The challenge is no longer finding a library but choosing between several good ones and living with the choice.
Macros in Rust are powerful but should be used sparingly. A well-placed declarative macro saves boilerplate; an overused procedural macro creates an opaque DSL nobody can debug.
Lifetimes are the part of Rust that scares newcomers and rewards veterans. Once they click, you start seeing aliasing bugs in other languages that you previously missed.
Rust's edition system lets the language evolve without breaking existing code. Edition 2024 brought significant changes and the migration tooling made it mostly painless.
The standard library is deliberately small. Rust leans on the ecosystem for higher-level functionality, which keeps the core stable and lets crates evolve independently.
Macros in Rust are powerful but should be used sparingly. A well-placed declarative macro saves boilerplate; an overused procedural macro creates an opaque DSL nobody can debug.
Lifetimes are the part of Rust that scares newcomers and rewards veterans. Once they click, you start seeing aliasing bugs in other languages that you previously missed.
The standard library is deliberately small. Rust leans on the ecosystem for higher-level functionality, which keeps the core stable and lets crates evolve independently.
Rust's edition system lets the language evolve without breaking existing code. Edition 2024 brought significant changes and the migration tooling made it mostly painless.
Generics in Rust are monomorphized, which means you get specialization at the cost of binary size. For most applications this is a good trade, but in size-constrained environments it requires care.
Error handling via Result and Option is verbose but honest. Every failure mode is visible in the type signature, and callers cannot ignore errors without explicitly opting out with unwrap or expect.
Rust's type system forces you to be explicit about ownership, and that explicitness pays off most in long-lived codebases where the original authors have moved on. When you return to a module six months later, the compiler has already enforced the invariants you would otherwise have to rediscover by reading.
Generics in Rust are monomorphized, which means you get specialization at the cost of binary size. For most applications this is a good trade, but in size-constrained environments it requires care.
Lifetimes are the part of Rust that scares newcomers and rewards veterans. Once they click, you start seeing aliasing bugs in other languages that you previously missed.
Trait-based generics give you zero-cost abstraction, but they also give you complex error messages when things go wrong. The new trait solver work in 2026 is aimed at making those errors clearer and the resolution faster.
Macros in Rust are powerful but should be used sparingly. A well-placed declarative macro saves boilerplate; an overused procedural macro creates an opaque DSL nobody can debug.
Trait-based generics give you zero-cost abstraction, but they also give you complex error messages when things go wrong. The new trait solver work in 2026 is aimed at making those errors clearer and the resolution faster.
Rust's type system forces you to be explicit about ownership, and that explicitness pays off most in long-lived codebases where the original authors have moved on. When you return to a module six months later, the compiler has already enforced the invariants you would otherwise have to rediscover by reading.
Unsafe Rust is a feature, not a bug. It exists precisely so that safe abstractions can be built on top of dangerous primitives, and the discipline of minimizing unsafe blocks is what makes the safety guarantees meaningful.
Macros in Rust are powerful but should be used sparingly. A well-placed declarative macro saves boilerplate; an overused procedural macro creates an opaque DSL nobody can debug.
Macros in Rust are powerful but should be used sparingly. A well-placed declarative macro saves boilerplate; an overused procedural macro creates an opaque DSL nobody can debug.
Error handling via Result and Option is verbose but honest. Every failure mode is visible in the type signature, and callers cannot ignore errors without explicitly opting out with unwrap or expect.
Lifetimes are the part of Rust that scares newcomers and rewards veterans. Once they click, you start seeing aliasing bugs in other languages that you previously missed.
Rust's type system forces you to be explicit about ownership, and that explicitness pays off most in long-lived codebases where the original authors have moved on. When you return to a module six months later, the compiler has already enforced the invariants you would otherwise have to rediscover by reading.
Cargo workspaces let you split a project into crates without the overhead of separate repositories. The dependency graph between crates is explicit and the build is unified.