The Rust Foundation conducted its annual survey between December 5th and 23rd, 2024. As in previous years, it was focused on gathering insights and feedback from Rust users which are now presented in its report. 

We first covered the Rust survey in 2018 when it was at its third edition. Now it is at its ninth. The big change was that whereas back then only 74.5% of respondents answered Yes to "Are you a Rust user?" and now the proportion is 93.4%.

While there was a very slight increase in the proportion of respondents who actually use Rust between 2023 and 2024, this is due to a decrease in the proportion who have used it and no longer do from 4.1% last year to 3.3% this year. A further 3.3% had never used Rust.

As in previous surveys the reasons for not using Rust were probed and respondents could provide multiple answers. There were 327 respondents to the question "Why don''t you use Rust?" and by far the main reason (67%) was "I haven't got around to it". The next most common (31%) was considering it "too difficult", followed by (21%) preference for another language and (15%) "factors outside my control".

Among the 348 respondents who indicated that they had stop using Rust 64% chose the option "I plan to use it in the future once an opportunity comes up" and another 45% option for "I no longer have the opportunity to use Rust due to factors outside my control". However the "too difficult to learn" and "prefer another language" were also prevalent, 24% and 31% respectively. 

Minority reasons for not using Rust were cited by both these groups of respondents - around 5% each for missing libraries, missing language features and missing tools and around 6% for "Community was rude, unwelcoming or otherwise off-putting".

The last time we looked at the Rust survey was for the 2022 edition in Rust Takes Its Place At Work. The trend towards using Rust in the workplace has continued as shown in this chart that compares 2022, 2023, and 2024.

For the first time more respondents claimed "Yes, for the majority of my coding" than "No" and if you add in those who chose the new option "Yes, a few times per week on average" it's over half of respondents who make extensive use of Rust at work.

A further question asked about the experience of using Rust at work and here the trends over three year go in the correct directions:

On the up are "Using Rust helps us achieve or goals", now 82% compared to 72% in 2022; "We're likely to use Rust again in the future", up 3% to 78%;  and "Using Rust has been worth the cost of Adoption". Going down are "Adopting Rust has been challenging", now 34.5% compared to 38.5% in 2022; and "Overall adopting Rust has slowed down our team" down by over 2% to 7%. 

A new question in the latest survey asked about the speed of Rust's evolution:

The results revealed that most Rust users are content with the status quo. A quarter would like Rust to stabilize and/or add features more quickly, while only 7% of respondents would prefer Rust to slow down or completely stop adding new features.   

Overall this should be good news for Rust's developers. 

More Information

2024 State of Rust Survey Results

Related Articles

Rust Takes Its Place At Work

Rust Use Continues To Increase

Rust Survey 2020

Daily Rust Use Increases, Survey Finds

Rust Survey Revelations (2018)

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