Why Zig Feels More Practical Than Rust for Real-World CLI Tools Author: Dayvi Schuster | 8 min read | Tuesday, September 23, 2025 A deep dive into why Zig often offers a more practical and straightforward experience than Rust for building command-line interface (CLI) tools, focusing on memory management, safety, and developer ergonomics. --- Introduction to Memory Management: Stack vs Heap Stack: Temporary, fixed-size memory region working in LIFO order. Efficient but limited in size. Used for function parameters, local variables, and return addresses. Excessive use causes stack overflow errors. Heap: Dynamic memory allocation region without fixed size. Stores data that persists beyond function calls. Managed by OS; slower and can suffer from fragmentation, leading to performance issues. --- Rust’s Borrow Checker Ensures memory safety at compile time by enforcing rules on references to prevent null pointer dereferencing, dangling pointers, and data races. Operates only statically; can't fix runtime logic errors or teaching good memory patterns. Can cause complexity and awkward code restructuring especially in mutable data handling scenarios. --- Real-World Example: CLI Tool for Notes Rust struggles with mutability and borrowing simultaneously holding references while adding notes, forcing complex code restructuring. Zig handles this straightforwardly by manually managing allocations and pointers without lifetimes or wrappers. Zig’s approach makes iterating and mutation easier, speeding development and reducing mental overhead. --- Rethinking Safety for CLI Tools Memory safety ≠ overall software safety. Other concerns matter: Predictable behavior even with malformed input. Graceful error handling to avoid crashes or silent corruption. Good performance under load. Protecting sensitive data. Robustness against attacks (where Rust’s memory safety is helpful but not foolproof). Rust enforces memory safety but doesn’t automatically guarantee these broader aspects. --- Borrow Checker: Pros and Cons Strengths Zero data races and mutable aliasing issues. Strong guarantees catch many memory bugs before runtime. Early detection reduces bugs in production, critical in large, concurrent systems. Limitations High cognitive overhead dealing with ownership, lifetimes. Boilerplate with clones, wrappers, or redesigns rendered for compiler satisfaction. Only compile-time checks; cannot prevent logic or silent bugs. Edge cases (global state, caches) become cumbersome. --- Zig’s Approach: Simplicity and Controlled Safety Manual memory management with optional safety checks. Offers allocators for structured memory control (std.heap.page_allocator or custom allocators). Supports defer for deterministic cleanup to manage resources safely. comptime feature executes code at compile time aiding static analysis and optimization. Places safety responsibility on developers, rewarding discipline with simplicity and performance. Contrasts Rust’s compiler-driven enforcement with developer-driven control. --- Developer Ergonomics & Philosophy Ergonomics refers to how comfortable and productive programming is. Rust prioritizes safety sometimes at a cost to ergonomics, often feeling restrictive. Zig respects developers as capable, giving power and expecting responsibility. The author values minimal ceremony for faster, clearer code expression. Assumes mistakes happen but learning and responsibility improve skills over time. Contrasts Rust’s aim to shield from mistakes vs Zig’s approach of fostering developer growth. --- Final Thoughts Rust excels in complex, multi-threaded, long-lived applications with heavy compile-time guarantees. For small, practical CLI tools, Rust can feel like overkill. Zig shines in simplicity, speed, and straightforward coding with sufficient safety given developer