I built hiignite's API in Rust, and I'll say up front that it wasn't the optimal choice for a new project. I want to write the actual reasoning down, because "why Rust" deserves a more honest answer than the one it usually gets.
The honest reason
I kept seeing it everywhere. It read as a next-generation language — the one that keeps turning up in the places I pay attention to — and I wanted to build something real with it rather than work through another tutorial. That's the origin of the decision. Not benchmarks, not a requirements matrix. Curiosity, plus a project I actually wanted to exist.
I think that's a more common reason than people admit, and I'd rather own it than reverse-engineer a business case after the fact.
What it costs
Development is a lot slower than in any language I already knew. Not slightly slower — a lot. Things I could have written on autopilot elsewhere became genuine problems to sit with.
And the compiler does not let you cut corners. There's no "I'll handle that case later," no leaving a value in a shape you haven't thought through. It refuses, and it refuses in detail, and you don't move until you've answered it. I have a love-hate relationship with it: it's the most irritating part of the day and the reason I trust the result.
On a project built in free time, that cost is real. Slower progress on a side project isn't an abstraction — it's the difference between shipping something and losing interest.
The bet
The thought was that it would mould me into a better programmer. Not "better at Rust" — better generally. A language that forces you to be explicit about ownership, about what can fail, about what might be absent, is a language that makes you notice how much you'd been leaving to luck everywhere else.
That part I already believe has paid off, and I don't think you need the project to launch to see it.
Fewer production surprises? Ask me later
The other thing you read constantly is that Rust means fewer surprises in production. I'd like it to be true. I genuinely don't know yet, because we're not live.
So I'm not going to claim it. Anyone telling you about their production Rust experience before they have production is describing a hope, not a result. Ask me again after launch and I'll have an actual answer — including if the answer is that it made no difference.
Would I recommend it?
For every project? No. If you're on a deadline, or validating an idea that might not survive the month, use what you know. Rust will slow you down, and being slow to find out an idea was wrong is the expensive kind of slow.
But if you want to learn something that will matter, and you've got a project you're already turning over in the back of your mind anyway — then yes. A big yes. Learning a language in the abstract teaches you syntax. Learning it while building something you care about teaches you the language.
That combination is the only reason this was a good decision. On its own, "Rust for a new solo project" isn't one.