Rust in Production

Cloudsmith with Cian Butler

Rust adoption can be loud, like when companies such as Microsoft, Meta, and Google announce their use of Rust in high-profile projects. But there are countless smaller teams quietly using Rust to solve real-world problems, sometimes even without noticing. This episode tells one such story. Cian and his team at Cloudsmith have been adopting Rust in their Python monolith not because they wanted to rewrite everything in Rust, but because Rust extensions were simply best-in-class for the specific performance problems they were trying to solve in their Django application. As they had these initial successes, they gained more confidence in Rust and started using it in more and more areas of their codebase. About Cloudsmith Made with love in Belfast and trusted around the world. Cloudsmith is the fully-managed solution for controlling, securing, and distributing software artifacts. They analyze every package, container, and ML model in an organization's supply chain, allow blocking bad packages before they reach developers, and build an ironclad chain of custody. About Cian Butler Cian is a Service Reliability Engineer located in Dublin, Ireland. He has been working with Rust for 10 years and has a history of helping companies build reliable and efficient software. He has a BA in Computer Programming from Dublin City University. Links From The Episode * Lee Skillen's blog [https://www.skillen.io/] - The blog of Lee Skillen, Cloudsmith's co-founder and CTO * Django [https://www.djangoproject.com/] - Python on Rails * Django Mixins [https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/6.0/topics/class-based-views/mixins/] - Great for scaling up, not great for long-term maintenance * SBOM [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bill_of_materials] - Software Bill of Materials * Microservice vs Monolith [https://martinfowler.com/articles/microservices.html] - Martin Fowler's canonical explanation * Jaeger [https://www.jaegertracing.io/] - "Debugger" for microservices * PyO3 [https://pyo3.rs/] - Rust-to-Python and Python-to-Rust FFI crate * orjson [https://github.com/ijl/orjson] - Pretty fast JSON handling in Python using Rust * drf-orjson-renderer [https://github.com/brianjbuck/drf_orjson_renderer] - Simple orjson wrapper for Django REST Framework * Rust in Python cryptography [https://cryptography.io/en/latest/faq/#why-does-cryptography-require-rust] - Parsing complex data formats is just safer in Rust! * jsonschema-py [https://github.com/Stranger6667/jsonschema/tree/master/crates/jsonschema-py] - jsonschema in Python with Rust, mentioned in the PyO3 docs * WSGI [https://peps.python.org/pep-3333/] - Python's standard for HTTP server interfaces * uWSGI [https://uwsgi-docs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/] - A application server providing a WSGI interface * rustimport [https://github.com/mityax/rustimport] - Simply import Rust files as modules in Python, great for prototyping * granian [https://github.com/emmett-framework/granian] - WSGI application server written in Rust with tokio and hyper * hyper [https://hyper.rs/] - HTTP parsing and serialization library for Rust * HAProxy [https://www.haproxy.org/] - Feature rich reverse proxy with good request queue support * nginx [https://nginx.org/en/] - Very common reverse proxy with very nice and readable config * locust [https://locust.io/] - Fantastic load-test tool with configuration in Python * goose [https://www.tag1.com/goose/] - Locust, but in Rust * Podman [https://podman.io/] - Daemonless container engine * Docker [https://www.docker.com/] - Container platform * buildx [https://github.com/docker/buildx] - Docker CLI plugin for extended build capabilities with BuildKit * OrbStack [https://orbstack.dev/] - Faster Docker for Desktop alternative * Rust in Production: curl with Daniel Stenberg [https://corrode.dev/podcast/s02e01-curl/] - Talking about hyper's strictness being at odds with curl's permissive design * axum [https://docs.rs/axum/latest/axum/] - Ergonomic and modular web framework for Rust * rocket [https://rocket.rs/] - Web framework for Rust Official Links * Cloudsmith Website [https://cloudsmith.com/] * Cian Butler's Website [https://cianbutler.ie/] * Cian's E-Mail [butlerx@notthe.cloud]

Gama Space with Sebastian Scholz

Space exploration demands software that is reliable, efficient, and able to operate in the harshest environments imaginable. When a spacecraft deploys a solar sail millions of kilometers from Earth, there's no room for memory bugs, race conditions, or software failures. This is where Rust's robustness guarantees become mission-critical. In this episode, we speak with Sebastian Scholz, an engineer at Gama Space, a French company pioneering solar sail and drag sail technology for spacecraft propulsion and deorbiting. We explore how Rust is being used in aerospace applications, the unique challenges of developing software for space systems, and what it takes to build reliable embedded systems that operate beyond Earth's atmosphere. About Gama Space Gama Space is a French aerospace company founded in 2020 and headquartered in Ivry-sur-Seine, France. The company develops space propulsion and orbital technologies with a mission to keep space accessible. Their two main product lines are solar sails for deep space exploration using the sun's infinite energy, and drag sails—the most effective way to deorbit satellites and combat space debris. After just two years of R&D, Gama successfully launched their satellite on a SpaceX Falcon 9. The Gama Alpha mission is a 6U cubesat weighing just 11 kilograms that deploys a large 73.3m² sail. With 48 employees, Gama is at the forefront of making space exploration more sustainable and accessible. About Sebastian Scholz Sebastian Scholz is an engineer at Gama Space, where he works on developing software systems for spacecraft propulsion technology. His work involves building reliable, safety-critical embedded systems that must operate flawlessly in the extreme conditions of space. Sebastian brings expertise in systems programming and embedded development to one of the most demanding environments for software engineering. Links From The Episode * GAMA-ALPHA [https://www.satcat.com/sats/55084] - The demonstration satellite launched in January 2023 * Ada [https://ada-lang.io/] - Safety-focused programming language used in aerospace * probe-rs [https://probe.rs/] - Embedded debugging toolkit for Rust * hyper [https://hyper.rs/] - Fast and correct HTTP implementation for Rust * Flutter [https://flutter.dev/] - Google's UI toolkit for cross-platform development * UART [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_asynchronous_receiver-transmitter] - Very common low level communication protocol * Hamming Codes [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamming_code] - Error correction used to correct bit flips * Rexus/Bexus [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rexus/Bexus] - European project for sub-orbital experiments by students * Embassy [https://embassy.dev/] - The EMBedded ASsYnchronous framework * CSP [https://github.com/libcsp/libcsp] - The Cubesat Space Protocol * std::num::NonZero [https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/num/struct.NonZero.html] - A number in Rust that can't be 0 * std::ffi::CString [https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/ffi/struct.CString.html] - A null-byte terminated String * Rust in Production: KSAT [https://corrode.dev/podcast/s04e07-ksat/] - Our episode with Vegard about using Rust for Ground Station operations * Rust in Production: Oxide [https://corrode.dev/podcast/s03e03-oxide/] - Our episode with Steve, mentioning Hubris * Hubris [https://github.com/oxidecomputer/hubris] - Oxide's embedded operating system * ZeroCopy [https://docs.rs/zerocopy/latest/zerocopy/] - Transmute data in-place without allocations * std::mem::transmute [https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/mem/fn.transmute.html] - Unsafe function to treat a memory section as a different type than before Official Links * Gama Space Website [https://www.gamaspace.com/] * Gama Space on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/gamaspace/] * Gama Space on Crunchbase [https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/gama-22d7]

Radar with Jeff Kao

Radar processes billions of location events daily, powering geofencing and location APIs for companies like Uber, Lyft, and thousands of other apps. When their existing infrastructure started hitting performance and cost limits, they built HorizonDB, a specialized database which replaced both Elasticsearch and MongoDB with a custom single binary written in Rust and backed by RocksDB. In this episode, we dive deep into the technical journey from prototype to production. We talk about RocksDB internals, finite-state transducers, the intricacies of geospatial indexing with Hilbert curves, and why Rust's type system and performance characteristics made it the perfect choice for rewriting critical infrastructure that processes location data at massive scale. About Radar Radar is the leading geofencing and location platform, trusted by companies like Uber, Lyft, and thousands of apps to power location-based experiences. Processing billions of location events daily, Radar provides geofencing APIs, geocoding, and location tracking that enables developers to build powerful location-aware applications. Their infrastructure handles massive scale with a focus on accuracy, performance, and reliability. About Jeff Kao Jeff Kao is a Staff Engineer at Radar, where he led the development of HorizonDB, Radar's geospatial database written in Rust. His work replaced Elasticsearch and MongoDB with a custom Rust stack built on RocksDB, achieving dramatic improvements in performance and cost efficiency. Jeff has deep experience with geospatial systems and previously open-sourced Node.js TypeScript bindings for Google's S2 library. He holds a degree from the University of Waterloo. Links From The Episode * Radar Blog: High-Performance Geocoding in Rust [https://radar.com/blog/high-performance-geocoding-in-rust] - The blog post, which describes Radar's migration from Elasticsearch and MongoDB to Rust and RocksDB * FourSquare [https://foursquare.com/] - The compay Jeff worked at before * Ruby [https://www.ruby-lang.org/] - The basis for Rails * PagerDuty) [https://www.pagerduty.com/] - Another company Jeff worked at. Hes' been around! * CoffeeScript [https://coffeescript.org/] - The first big JavaScript alternative before TypeScript * Scala [https://www.scala-lang.org/] - A functional JVM based language * Wikipedia: MapReduce [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MapReduce] - Distributed application of functional programming * Wikipedia: Algebraic Data Types [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_data_type] - The concept behind Rust's Enums, also present in e.g. Scala * Kotlin [https://kotlinlang.org/] - Easier than Scala, better than Java * Apache Lucene [https://lucene.apache.org/] - The core of ElasticSearch * Discord Blog: Why Discord is switching from Go to Rust [https://discord.com/blog/why-discord-is-switching-from-go-to-rust] - Always the #1 result in searches for Rust migrations * Radar Blog: Introducing HorizonDB [https://radar.com/blog/introducing-horizondb] - A really nice write up of Horizon's architecture * RocksDB [https://rocksdb.org/] - The primary storage layer used in HorizonDB * MyRocks [https://github.com/facebook/mysql-5.6] - A MySQL Storage Engine using RocksDB, written by Facebook * MongoRocks [https://github.com/mongodb-partners/mongo-rocks] - A MongoDB Storage Layer using RocksDB * CockroachDB [https://www.cockroachlabs.com/] - PostgreSQL compatible, distributed, SQL Database * InfluxDB [https://www.influxdata.com/] - A timeseries database that used RocksDB at one point, and our very first guest in this Podcast! * sled [https://github.com/spacejam/sled] - An embedded database written in Rust * rocksdb [https://github.com/rust-rocksdb/rust-rocksdb] - Rust bindings for RocksDB * H3 [https://h3geo.org/] - Uber's Geo Hashing using hexagons * S2 [https://s2geometry.io/] - Google's Geo Hashing library * Wikipedia: Hilbert Curve [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert_curve] - A way to map 2 dimensions onto 1 while retaining proximity * Wikipedia: Finite-State Transducer [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite-state_transducer] - A state machine used for efficiently looking up if a word exists in the data set * Rust in Production: Astral [https://github.com/corrode/corrode.github.io/blob/baea69ca7c7be643832a8970c635d98f312ecc18/podcast/s04e03-astral] - Our episode with Charlie Marsh about tooling for the Python ecosystem * burntsushi [https://github.com/BurntSushi] - A very prolific Rust developer, now working at Astral * fst [https://github.com/BurntSushi/fst] - FST crate from burntsushi * Wikipedia: Trie [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trie] - A tree-structure using common prefixes * Wikipedia: Levenshtein Distance [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levenshtein_distance] - The number of letters you have to change, add, or remove to turn word a into word b * tantivy [https://github.com/quickwit-oss/tantivy] - A full-text search engine, written in Rust, inspired by Lucene * LightGBM [https://github.com/microsoft/LightGBM] - A gradient boosted tree, similar to a decision tree * fastText [https://fasttext.cc/] - A text classification library from Meta * Wikipedia: Inverted Index [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_index] - An index used for e.g. full text search * Wikipedia: Okapi BM25 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okapi_BM25] - The ranking algorithm used in tantivy * Wikipedia: tf-idf [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tf%E2%80%93idf] - A classic and simple ranking algorithm * Roaring Bitmaps [https://github.com/RoaringBitmap/roaring-rs] - A very fast bitset library used in many places * corrode.dev: Be Simple [https://corrode.dev/blog/be-simple/] - A sentiment right down Matthias' alley * loco-rs [https://loco.rs/] - Rust on Rails Official Links * Radar [https://radar.com/] * Radar Blog [https://radar.com/blog] * Radar Documentation [https://radar.com/documentation] * Jeff Kao on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-kao/]

Holiday Episode

As we close the chapter on 2025 and celebrate our second year of 'Rust in Production', it's time to reflect on the highlights of the 17 episodes since our last holiday special. We looked at Rust from all angles, from cloud infrastructure to embedded systems, and from robotics to satellite technology. One thing that all these stories have in common is the passion and dedication of the Rust community to build faster, safer, and more reliable software. In this special episode, we look back at some of the memorable moments from the past year and celebrate Rust's achievements. This goes beyond the case studies we've covered; it's about the Rust community as a whole and the state of the Rust ecosystem at the end of 2025. Links from the Show: * Code.Talks Talk [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkBnXrKmcvw] - Matthias' presentation on Rust case studies * Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025 [https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2025/technology/#admired-and-desired] - Rust as most admired language since 1.0 release * Brave with Anton Lazarev (S03E07) [https://github.com/corrode/corrode.github.io/blob/cd03c9de4ef5e2d488b557f22334500099d69860/podcast/s03e07-brave] - Rust as the go-to language * Volvo with Julius Gustavsson (S03E08) [https://github.com/corrode/corrode.github.io/blob/cd03c9de4ef5e2d488b557f22334500099d69860/podcast/s03e08-volvo] - Empowering engineers * Astral with Charlie Marsh (S04E03) [https://github.com/corrode/corrode.github.io/blob/cd03c9de4ef5e2d488b557f22334500099d69860/podcast/s04e03-astral] - Welcoming community leads to huge impact * Scythe with Andrew Tinka (S05E02) [https://github.com/corrode/corrode.github.io/blob/cd03c9de4ef5e2d488b557f22334500099d69860/podcast/s05e02-scythe] - Confidence in what you build * Rust4Linux CVE [https://lore.kernel.org/all/2025121614-CVE-2025-68260-558d@gregkh/] - The first CVE in Rust for Linux * Greg KH post [https://social.kernel.org/notice/B1JLrtkxEBazCPQHDM] - Context on kernel CVE statistics * curl with Daniel Stenberg (S02E01) [https://github.com/corrode/corrode.github.io/blob/cd03c9de4ef5e2d488b557f22334500099d69860/podcast/s02e01-curl] - Bug reports every three hours, code constantly changes * curl statistics [https://mastodon.social/@bagder/115501681801742424] - How old code gets rewritten all the time * Tembo with Adam Hendel (S04E05) [https://github.com/corrode/corrode.github.io/blob/cd03c9de4ef5e2d488b557f22334500099d69860/podcast/s04e05-tembo] - Software is never done * Redis CVE-2025-49844 [https://redis.io/blog/security-advisory-cve-2025-49844/] - Remote code execution vulnerability from use-after-free * Canonical with John Seager (S05E05) [https://github.com/corrode/corrode.github.io/blob/cd03c9de4ef5e2d488b557f22334500099d69860/podcast/s05e05-canonical] - Ubuntu is optimistic about Rust * Rust in Android [https://security.googleblog.com/2025/11/rust-in-android-move-fast-fix-things.html] - Memory safety vulnerabilities below 20% * Android statistics [https://www.demandsage.com/android-statistics/] - 3.9 billion active devices worldwide * Roc with Richard Feldman (S05E04) [https://github.com/corrode/corrode.github.io/blob/cd03c9de4ef5e2d488b557f22334500099d69860/podcast/s05e04-roc] - Focus on the end user * Svix with Tom Hacohen (S04E02) [https://github.com/corrode/corrode.github.io/blob/cd03c9de4ef5e2d488b557f22334500099d69860/podcast/s04e02-svix] - Love it, but compile times... * Prime Video with Alexandru Ene (S05E01) [https://github.com/corrode/corrode.github.io/blob/cd03c9de4ef5e2d488b557f22334500099d69860/podcast/s05e01-prime-video] - Build times need to improve * crates.io [https://crates.io/] - 200 billion crate downloads and 200k published crates * Cloudflare with Kevin Guthrie and Edward Wang (S05E03) [https://github.com/corrode/corrode.github.io/blob/cd03c9de4ef5e2d488b557f22334500099d69860/podcast/s05e03-cloudflare] - Ecosystem is fantastic; thanks to all maintainers * Rust Conferences 2026 [https://github.com/corrode/corrode.github.io/blob/cd03c9de4ef5e2d488b557f22334500099d69860/blog/rust-conferences-2026] - Complete list of upcoming Rust conferences * CodeCrafters Course [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ5sfhGmEVU] - Build your own HTTP server in Rust * Rust Project Goals [https://blog.rust-lang.org/2025/12/16/Project-Goals-2025-November-Update.md/] - November update on 41 active project goals * cargo-script RFC [https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/issues/12207] - Run Rust scripts without full Cargo projects * Better pin ergonomics RFC [https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-project-goals/issues/389] - Improving async Rust ergonomics * KSAT with Vegard Sandengen (S04E07) [https://github.com/corrode/corrode.github.io/blob/cd03c9de4ef5e2d488b557f22334500099d69860/podcast/s04e07-ksat] - Make async better * 1Password with Andrew Burkhart (S04E06) [https://github.com/corrode/corrode.github.io/blob/cd03c9de4ef5e2d488b557f22334500099d69860/podcast/s04e06-1password] - Make it easier to learn Rust * Rust Book by Brown University [https://rust-book.cs.brown.edu/] - Interactive learning resource for Rust * Clippy lints [https://rust-lang.github.io/rust-clippy/master/index.html] - All available linter rules for Rust * C++ and Rust interop [https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-project-goals/blob/main/src/2025h2/interop-problem-map.md] - Safer language interoperability initiative * Microsoft with Victor Ciura (S04E01) [https://github.com/corrode/corrode.github.io/blob/cd03c9de4ef5e2d488b557f22334500099d69860/podcast/s04e01-microsoft] - C++ doesn't have to die for Rust to succeed * BorrowSanitizer initiative [https://borrowsanitizer.com/] - LLVM instrumentation for detecting aliasing violations * Polonius [https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-project-goals/issues/118] - Next-generation borrow checker * Rust with Niko Matsakis (S04E04) [https://github.com/corrode/corrode.github.io/blob/cd03c9de4ef5e2d488b557f22334500099d69860/podcast/s04e04-rust] - Be excellent to each other (Bill & Ted reference)

Rust4Linux with Danilo Krummrich

Bringing Rust into the Linux kernel is one of the most ambitious modernization efforts in open source history. The Linux kernel, with its decades of C code and deeply ingrained development practices, is now opening its doors to a memory-safe language. It's the first time in over 30 years that a new programming language has been officially adopted for kernel development. But the journey is far from straightforward. In this episode, we speak with Danilo Krummrich, Linux kernel maintainer and Rust for Linux core team member, about the groundbreaking work of integrating Rust into the Linux kernel. Among other things, we talk about the Nova GPU driver, a Rust-based successor to Nouveau for NVIDIA graphics cards, and discuss the technical challenges and cultural shifts required for large-scale Rust adoption in the kernel as well as the future of the Rust4Linux project. About Rust for Linux Rust for Linux is a project aimed at bringing the Rust programming language into the Linux kernel. Started to improve memory safety and reduce vulnerabilities in kernel code, the project has been gradually building the infrastructure, abstractions, and tooling necessary for Rust to coexist with the kernel's existing C codebase. About Danilo Krummrich Danilo Krummrich is a software engineer at Red Hat and a core contributor to the Rust for Linux project. His fundamental contribution to Rust for Linux is the driver-core infrastructure, the foundational framework that makes it possible to write drivers in Rust at all. This includes both C and Rust code that provides the core abstractions for device drivers in the kernel. Danilo is a maintainer for multiple critical kernel subsystems, including Driver Core, DRM (GPUVM, Rust, GPU Scheduler), GPU drivers for NVIDIA GPUs (Nova, Nouveau), Firmware Loader API, as well as Rust bindings for PCI, DMA, and ALLOC. He is the primary developer of the Nova GPU driver, a fully Rust-based driver for modern NVIDIA GPUs. Links From The Episode * AOSP [https://source.android.com/] - The Android Open Source Project * Kernel Mailing Lists [https://lore.kernel.org/] - Where the Linux development happens * Miguel Ojeda [https://ojeda.dev/] - Rust4Linux maintainer * Wedson Almeida Filho [https://github.com/wedsonaf] - Retired Rust4Linux maintainer * noveau driver [https://docs.kernel.org/gpu/nouveau.html] - The old driver for NVIDIA GPUs * Vulkan [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulkan] - A low level graphics API * Mesa [https://www.mesa3d.org/] - Vulkan and OpenGL implementation for Linux * vtable [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_method_table] - Indirect function call, a source of headaches in nouveau * DRM [https://docs.kernel.org/gpu/introduction.html] - Direct Rendering Manager, Linux subsystem for all things graphics * Monolithic Kernel [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolithic_kernel] - Linux' kernel architecture * The Typestate Pattern in Rust [https://cliffle.com/blog/rust-typestate/] - A very nice way to model state machines in Rust * pinned-init [https://crates.io/crates/pinned-init] - The userspace crate for pin-init * rustfmt [https://github.com/rust-lang/rustfmt] - Free up space in your brain by not thinking about formatting * kunit [https://docs.kernel.org/dev-tools/kunit/index.html] - Unit testing framework for the kernel * Rust core crate [https://doc.rust-lang.org/stable/core/index.html] - The only part of the Rust Standard Library used in the Linux kernel * Alexandre Courbot [https://github.com/Gnurou] - NVIDIA employed co-maintainer of nova-core * Greg Kroah-Hartman [http://www.kroah.com/linux/] - Linux Foundation fellow and major Linux contributor * Dave Airlie [https://github.com/airlied] - Maintainer of the DRM tree * vim [https://www.vim.org/] - not even neovim * mutt [http://www.mutt.org/] - classic terminal e-mail client * aerc [https://aerc-mail.org/] - a pretty good terminal e-mail client * Rust4Linux Zulip [https://rust-for-linux.com/contact#zulip-chat] - The best entry point for the Rust4Linux community Official Links * Rust for Linux GitHub [https://github.com/Rust-for-Linux] * Danilo Krummrich on GitHub [https://github.com/dakr] * Danilo Krummrich on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/danilo-krummrich-796885153/]