Shopify Embraces Rust for Systems Programming

Summary

Shopify has adopted Rust as its official systems programming language while retaining Ruby for server-side business logic, and has joined the Rust Foundation. The change addresses growing systems-programming needs including high-performance network servers, Ruby native extensions, and WebAssembly, where Shopify seeks speed, productivity, safety, and community-driven open source. Shopify cites Rust’s predictable native-code performance, fine-grained memory control, compile-time safety, support for concurrency, and interoperability with C and Ruby through tools and crates such as bindgen, rb-sys, and magnus. The company says Rust performed strongly in its safety evaluation and that its initial projects exposed more errors at compile time, while acknowledging that performance still depends on design and measurement and that internal education, tooling, and community participation remain unfinished work.

Context

Shopify’s expanding base of systems programming projects requires a language that is fast, productive, safe, flexible across domains, interoperable with existing native libraries, and supported by a community-driven open-source ecosystem.

Approach / What changed

Shopify standardized Rust for systems programming, including high-performance servers, Ruby native extensions, and WebAssembly work. It is also improving Rust support in development and deployment processes, building internal expertise and educational resources, developing tooling, and joining the Rust Foundation.

Takeaways

• Rust is intended to cover several Shopify systems-programming domains, including high-performance servers, Ruby extensions, and compiling to WebAssembly, allowing investment in one language to serve multiple uses.
• Shopify found Rust ahead on safety among the languages it evaluated, citing memory safety, reduced data races in parallel programs, and more errors detected at compile time rather than runtime.
• Rust’s performance is not automatic: Shopify notes that developers must still design and measure for performance, making developer tools and support an important part of its adoption work.

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