Rust in Production

Rust for Linux with Alice Ryhl and Greg Kroah-Hartman 21.05.2026 49min

Hot off the press: this episode is a live recording from Rust Week in Utrecht, just two days ago. On stage with me are two people who hardly need an introduction in the Linux world: Greg Kroah-Hartman, Linux Foundation Fellow, stable kernel maintainer and an ambassador for the kernel, and Alice Ryhl, core maintainer of Tokio and one of the driving forces behind Rust for Linux at Google.I have to admit a bit of personal history here: I first wrote about Greg more than 20 years ago for the German online newspaper Pro-Linux. Getting to sit down with him, and with Alice, in front of a live audience to talk about how Rust is reshaping the most important piece of infrastructure on the planet, was a genuine career highlight.We get into the big questions: Why does Alice believe that interop, not rewrites, is how Rust wins inside Linux? How do you carefully weave in Rust while maintaining a 35-million-line C codebase? And what does it actually feel like, day to day, to write kernel code in Rust?“Rust is gonna save the Linux kernel.” — Greg Kroah-Hartman

NLnet Labs with Arya Khanna and Martin Hoffmann 07.05.2026 1h 21min

Every time you load a website, send an email, or update an app, you're quietly relying on a handful of unglamorous services that route your packets to the right place: DNS to translate names into addresses, and BGP to figure out how to actually get there. When these systems break, or get attacked, the Internet doesn't just slow down but stops working.For more than 25 years, NLnet Labs has been one of the small, non-profit teams keeping that core infrastructure running. Their software, including the DNS servers NSD and Unbound, the RPKI tools Krill and Routinator, and the new DNSSEC signer Cascade, is deployed everywhere from hobbyist Pi-Hole setups to Let's Encrypt and major Internet operators. And increasingly, it's written in Rust!In this episode, I talk to Arya Khanna and Martin Hoffmann from NLnet Labs about what it takes to maintain critical Internet infrastructure as a small team, why they bet on Rust for new projects like the domain crate and Cascade and what the rest of us can learn from a codebase whose users include the people who keep your routes flowing.

Helsing with Jon Gjengset 23.04.2026 1h 33min

Jon Gjengset is one of the most recognizable names in the Rust community, the author of Rust for Rustaceans, a prolific live-streamer, and a long-time contributor to the Rust ecosystem. Today he works as a Principal Engineer at Helsing, a European defense company that has made Rust a foundational part of its engineering stack. Helsing builds safety-critical software for real-world defense applications, where correctness, performance, and reliability are non-negotiable. In this episode, Jon talks about what it means to build mission-critical systems in Rust, why Helsing bet on Rust from the start, and what lessons from his years of Rust education have shaped the way he writes and thinks about production code.

Cloudsmith with Cian Butler 09.04.2026 1h 14min

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 CloudsmithMade 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 ButlerCian 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 EpisodeLee Skillen's blog - The blog of Lee Skillen, Cloudsmith's co-founder and CTODjango - Python on RailsDjango Mixins - Great for scaling up, not great for long-term maintenanceSBOM - Software Bill of MaterialsMicroservice vs Monolith - Martin Fowler's canonical explanationJaeger - "Debugger" for microservicesPyO3 - Rust-to-Python and Python-to-Rust FFI crateorjson - Pretty fast JSON handling in Python using Rustdrf-orjson-renderer - Simple orjson wrapper for Django REST FrameworkRust in Python cryptography - Parsing complex data formats is just safer in Rust!jsonschema-py - jsonschema in Python with Rust, mentioned in the PyO3 docsWSGI - Python's standard for HTTP server interfacesuWSGI - A application server providing a WSGI interfacerustimport - Simply import Rust files as modules in Python, great for prototypinggranian - WSGI application server written in Rust with tokio and hyperhyper - HTTP parsing and serialization library for RustHAProxy - Feature rich reverse proxy with good request queue supportnginx - Very common reverse proxy with very nice and readable configlocust - Fantastic load-test tool with configuration in Pythongoose - Locust, but in RustPodman - Daemonless container engineDocker - Container platformbuildx - Docker CLI plugin for extended build capabilities with BuildKitOrbStack - Faster Docker for Desktop alternativeRust in Production: curl with Daniel Stenberg - Talking about hyper's strictness being at odds with curl's permissive designaxum - Ergonomic and modular web framework for Rustrocket - Web framework for RustOfficial LinksCloudsmith WebsiteCian Butler's WebsiteCian's E-Mail

Gama Space with Sebastian Scholz 22.01.2026 58min

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.

Radar with Jeff Kao 08.01.2026 1h 2min

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.

Holiday Episode 25.12.2025 29min

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.

Rust4Linux with Danilo Krummrich 11.12.2025 1h

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.

Canonical with Jon Seager 27.11.2025 57min

What does it take to rewrite the foundational components of one of the world's most popular Linux distributions? Ubuntu serves over 12 million daily desktop users alone, and the systems that power it, from sudo to core utilities, have been running for decades with what Jon Seager, VP of Engineering for Ubuntu at Canonical, calls "shaky underpinnings."In this episode, we talk to Jon about the bold decision to "oxidize" Ubuntu's foundation. We explore why they're rewriting critical components like sudo in Rust, how they're managing the immense risk of changing software that millions depend on daily, and what it means to modernize a 20-year-old operating system without breaking the internet.

Roc with Richard Feldman 13.11.2025 1h 2min

Building a new programming language from scratch is a monumental undertaking. In this episode, we talk to Richard Feldman, creator of the Roc programming language, about building a functional language that is fast, friendly, and functional. We discuss why the Roc team moved away from using Rust as a host language and instead is in the process of migrating to Zig. What was the decision-making process like? What can Rust learn this decision? And how does Zig compare to Rust for this kind of systems programming work?

Cloudflare with Edward Wang & Kevin Guthrie 30.10.2025 1h 7min

How do you build a system that handles 90 million requests per second? That's the scale that Cloudflare operates at, processing roughly 25% of all internet traffic through their global network of 330+ edge locations.In this episode, we talk to Kevin Guthrie and Edward Wang from Cloudflare about Pingora, their open-source Rust-based proxy that replaced nginx across their entire infrastructure. We'll find out why they chose Rust for mission-critical systems handling such massive scale, the technical challenges of replacing battle-tested infrastructure, and the lessons learned from "oxidizing" one of the internet's largest networks.

Scythe with Andrew Tinka 16.10.2025 58min

Building autonomous robots that operate safely in the real world is one of the most challenging engineering problems today. When those robots carry sharp blades and work around people, the margin for error is razor-thin.In this episode, we talk to Andrew Tinka from Scythe Robotics about how they use Rust to build autonomous electric mowers for commercial landscaping. We discuss the unique challenges of robotics software, why Rust is an ideal choice for cutting-edge safety-critical systems, and what it takes to keep autonomous machines running smoothly in the field.

Prime Video with Alexandru Ene 02.10.2025 1h 19min

Are you one of over 240 million subscribers of Amazon's Prime Video service? If so, you might be surprised to learn that much of the infrastructure behind Prime Video is built using Rust. They use a single codebase for media players, game consoles, and tablets. In this episode, we sit down with Alexandru Ene, a Principal Engineer at Amazon, to discuss how Rust is used at Prime Video, the challenges they face in building a global streaming service, and the benefits of using Rust for their systems.

Season 4 Finale 24.07.2025 19min

It’s time for another recap including our highlights of Season 4.We’ve been at this for a while now (four seasons, and 32 episodes to be exact). We had guests from a wide range of industries: from Microsoft to Astral, and from password managers to satellite systems.This time, it’s all about using Rust for foundational software, which is software that is critical to a team or even an entire organization. Rust is a great fit for this type of software!We would like to thank the guests for their time and insights. We would also like to thank you, the listener for your support and feedback. Hosting and producing a podcast is a lot of work, but it’s worth it when we hear from you. Here’s to another great season!

KSAT with Vegard Sandengen 10.07.2025 46min

As a kid, I was always fascinated by space tech. That fascination has only grown as I've learned more about the engineering challenges involved in space exploration.In this episode, we talk to Vegard Sandengen, a Rust engineer at KSAT, a company that provides ground station services for satellites. They use Rust to manage the data flow from hundreds of satellites, ensuring that data is received, processed, and stored efficiently. This data is then made available to customers around the world, enabling them to make informed decisions based on real-time satellite data.We dive deep into the technical challenges of building reliable, high-performance systems that operate 24/7 to capture and process satellite data. Vegard shares insights into why Rust was chosen for these mission-critical systems, how they handle the massive scale of data processing, and the unique reliability requirements when dealing with space-based infrastructure.From ground station automation to data pipeline optimization, this conversation explores how modern systems programming languages are enabling the next generation of space technology infrastructure.

1Password with Andrew Burkhart 26.06.2025 1h 3min

Handling secrets is extremely hard. You have to keep them safe (obviously), while at the same time you need to integrate with a ton of different systems and always provide a great user-experience, because otherwise people will just find a way around your system. When talking to peers, a lot of people mention 1Password as a company that nailed this balance.

Tembo with Adam Hendel 12.06.2025 48min

In today's episode, I talk to Adam Hendel, the founding engineer of Tembo, about their project, PGMQ, and how it came to be. We discuss the design decisions behind job queues, interfacing from Rust to Postgres, and the engineering decisions that went into building the extension.

Rust with Niko Matsakis 29.05.2025 56min

Few developers have been as influential to my career as Niko Matsakis. Of course he is a world-class engineer with a PhD from ETH Zürich, a Rust core maintainer who has been working on the language for way more than a decade, and a Senior Principal Engineer at AWS. But more importantly, he is an empathetic human and an exceptional communicator.

uv with Charlie Marsh 15.05.2025 1h 15min

Up until a few years ago, Python tooling was a nightmare: basic tasks like installing packages or managing Python versions was a pain. The tools were brittle and did not work well together, mired in a swamp of underspecified implementation defined behaviour.Then, apparently suddenly, but in reality backed by years of ongoing work on formal interoperability specifications, we saw a renaissance of new ideas in the Python ecosystem. It started with Poetry and pipx and continued with tooling written in Rust like rye, which later got incorporated into Astral. Astral in particular contributed a very important piece to the puzzle: uv – an extremely fast Python package and project manager that supersedes all previous attempts; For example, it is 10x-100x faster than pip.  In this episode I talk to Charlie Marsh, the Founder and CEO of Astral. We talk about Astral’s mission and how Rust plays an important role in it.

Svix with Tom Hacohen 01.05.2025 1h 9min

We don't usually think much about Webhooks -- at least I don't. It's just web requests after all, right? In reality, there is a lot of complexity behind routing webhook requests through the internet. What if a webhook request gets lost? How do you know it was received in the first place? Can it be a security issue if a webhook gets handled twice? (Spoiler alert: yes)Today I sit down with Tom from Svix to talk about what it takes to build an enterprise-ready webhook service. Of course it's written in Rust.