For one, the build system/dependency system is much more easier to handle. Rust uses the cargo package manager, and depending on an external library is as simple as adding a single line to the Cargo.toml config file. Likewise, building, running, documenting and testing is all a build-in matter of calling `cargo [build|run|doc|test]`, which makes prototyping and getting started way easier than my experiences with C++ so far.

As far as the actual language goes it basically behaves like C++ and has a similar feature set, so you get the same sense of how given source code will end up in the compiled binary, and can write fast efficient code with, for example, features like pointers. The big distinction there is that Rust is memory safe per default, (including pointers in form of safe references) and upholds this invariant with compiletime checks and explicit language barriers (needing to encapsulate "unsafe" operations in unsafe {} blocks), so per default you are protected from whole classes of bugs that are possible in C++, like dangling pointers, memory races, iterator invalidation, etc.

https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/ownership.html

Interestingly, rustc also seems to generate programs that leak memory. I recall an issue where the simple and venerable "hello world" program in Rust (i.e., println!) had memory leaks.