Why Rust Is the Future of JavaScript Infrastructure

This article is a translation of "Rust Is The Future of JavaScript Infrastructure – Lee Robinson" with author permission and minor modifications for Chinese context.

Rust is a fast, reliable, memory‑efficient programming language that has been voted the most loved language for six consecutive years. Created by Mozilla, it is now used by Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google and many others for low‑level system infrastructure, cryptography, virtualization, and more.

What Is Rust?

Rust helps developers write fast software that makes efficient use of memory. It is a modern alternative to C/C++ with a focus on safety and concise syntax.

Unlike JavaScript, which relies on garbage collection to automatically free unused objects, Rust gives developers fine‑grained control over memory allocation without the pain of manual management found in C++ or Go.

Rust uses a unique ownership model that tracks who can read and write memory, enforcing rules at compile time so runtime memory errors are virtually impossible. The compiler handles memory lifetimes, so developers don’t need to manually track them. — Discord

Adoption

Firecracker (AWS)

Bottlerocket (AWS)

Quiche (Cloudflare)

Neqo (Mozilla)

Rust has been a source of strength for our team; betting on Rust was one of the best decisions we made. Its ergonomics and focus on correctness help us manage synchronization complexity by encoding invariants in the type system. — Dropbox

From JavaScript to Rust

The JavaScript ecosystem includes tools such as Webpack (bundling), Babel (transpilation), Terser (minification), Prettier (formatting), and ESLint (linting). These tools are written in JavaScript/TypeScript and have reached performance limits, prompting the creation of new, faster tools.

SWC

Created in 2017, SWC is a next‑generation, Rust‑based platform used by Next.js, Parcel, Deno and companies like Vercel, ByteDance, Tencent, and Shopify. It handles compilation, minification, bundling, and is extensible via custom transforms.

Deno

Deno, launched in 2018, is a modern, secure runtime for JavaScript and TypeScript built with V8 and Rust. Its linter, formatter, and documentation generator are built on SWC.

esbuild

esbuild, released in January 2020, is a Go‑written bundler and minifier that is 10‑100× faster than existing tools. Its creator, Evan, noted that while a Rust version could match its speed, Go felt more enjoyable for a side project.

Even with basic optimizations, Rust can outperform heavily tuned Go versions, proving how easy it is to write high‑performance programs in Rust compared to deep Go research. — Discord

Rome

Rome, introduced in August 2020, aims to replace and unify the entire front‑end toolchain (linter, compiler, bundler, test runner) for JavaScript/TypeScript/HTML/JSON/Markdown/CSS. It is currently written in TypeScript but is being rewritten in Rust.

NAPI

napi‑rs allows developers to build pre‑compiled Node.js add‑ons in Rust, providing out‑of‑the‑box cross‑compilation and publishing of native binaries without needing node-gyp or postinstall scripts.

Rust + WebAssembly

WebAssembly (WASM) is a portable low‑level language that Rust can compile to, enabling near‑native performance in browsers and interoperability with JavaScript. Early Rust‑based WASM frameworks include Yew, Percy, Seed, Sycamore, and Stork.

WASM is certainly faster than JavaScript but not yet at native speed; in our tests, Parcel compiled to WASM ran 10‑20× slower than native binaries. — Devon Govett

Why Not Choose Rust?

Rust has a steep learning curve and a lower level of abstraction than most web developers are accustomed to.

Rust forces you to think about memory sharing, copying, and edge‑case boundaries, ensuring they are handled correctly and helping you write highly efficient code. — Tom MacWright

Rust’s community is still relatively niche, and many common services (authentication, databases, payments) lack mature Rust libraries. However, as Rust and WASM reach critical adoption, these gaps are expected to close.

Future of JavaScript Tooling

Next.js 12 has begun replacing Babel and Terser with SWC written in Rust, achieving roughly 3× faster Fast Refresh and 5× faster builds. Benefits include extensibility, performance, WebAssembly support, and a vibrant community.

Deno’s linter, formatter, and docs generator are built on SWC.

Rome is being rewritten in Rust and will use SWC.

dprint, built on SWC, offers a code formatter up to 30× faster than Prettier.

Parcel uses SWC to boost overall build performance by up to 10×.

Early‑Stage Challenges

Plugins: Writing Rust plugins is still difficult for many JavaScript developers, and exposing a plugin system in JavaScript may negate performance gains.

Bundling: Projects like swcpack aim to replace Webpack but are still under development.

WebAssembly: Compiling Rust to WASM shows promise but requires further work.

In the next one to two years, Rust is expected to have a major impact on the JavaScript ecosystem, potentially leading to an environment where all build tools in Next.js are written in Rust and distributed as static binaries via npm.

Thanks to Devon Govett for reviewing the early draft.