Rust is the programming language created by Graydon Hoare and sponsored by Mozilla before its 2015 stable release.
Graydon Hoare began developing Rust around 2006, and Mozilla became involved in the project in 2009. The language was designed for systems programming, where developers need high performance but also want strong protection against memory and concurrency errors. Rust achieves this through compile-time ownership and borrowing rules rather than relying on a garbage collector.
Mozilla announced Rust 1.0, its first stable release, on May 15, 2015. The language later became an independent project governed by the Rust Foundation, established in 2020. Its compiler, Cargo package manager, and detailed error messages have helped build a large developer community.
Rust is often compared with C and C++ because it targets operating systems, embedded software, browsers, and other performance-sensitive tools. A common misunderstanding is that Rust is simply a safer version of C++; its ownership model introduces a distinct way to express resource management and program correctness.