6.9 Comparison Summary: Rust vs. C Memory Management
| Feature | C / C++ (Manual/RAII) | Rust (Ownership & Borrowing) |
|---|---|---|
| Memory Safety | Prone to leaks, dangling ptrs, double frees, use-after-free, buffer overflows | Compile-time prevention of these memory errors in safe code |
| Resource Mgmt | Manual (free) or RAII (destructors) | Automatic (Drop trait based on scope/ownership) |
| Data Races | Possible via aliased mutable pointers (even single-threaded UB), or thread concurrency | Prevented by borrow checking (&/&mut), Send/Sync traits for threads |
| Pointers | Raw pointers (*), potential null/invalid state/aliasing issues | Safe references (&/&mut), guaranteed valid/non-null; raw pointers only in unsafe |
| Concurrency | Requires manual locking/synchronization, error-prone | Ownership/borrowing + Send/Sync provide compile-time concurrency safety |
| Runtime Overhead | Minimal (manual) or depends on smart pointer/RAII logic | Minimal (compile-time checks, Drop calls, slice bounds checks) |
| Flexibility | High, but requires significant discipline for safety | High, with safety by default; unsafe provides low-level control when needed |
Rust’s ownership and borrowing system provides performance and control comparable to C/C++ while eliminating many common memory safety and concurrency pitfalls at compile time. This shifts bug detection much earlier in the development cycle.