Rust is the programming language Graydon Hoare created, with Mozilla’s sponsorship, for memory safety and systems programming.
Hoare began developing Rust around 2006, and Mozilla became involved in the project in 2009. Rust was designed to provide low-level control while preventing many memory and data-race errors at compile time. It reached its first stable release, Rust 1.0, on May 15, 2015.
Rust’s ownership, borrowing, and lifetime systems let the compiler track how memory is used without requiring a tracing garbage collector. The language also supports concurrency, generics, traits, pattern matching, and zero-cost abstractions.
Rust is sometimes described as simply a safer version of C++. That comparison is incomplete: Rust has its own type system and ownership model, and its syntax and tooling differ substantially. Mozilla later reduced its direct involvement, while the Rust project continued through its community and foundation.