Rust has roughly the same problem as C/C++: without compiler support for garbage collection, you quickly get off into the unappealing-option weeds. In this case, either "conservative" collection, or smart-pointer based collectors, which have performance issues compared to "proper GC's". (As far as GC features go, you can get pretty far with smart pointers: http://maniagnosis.crsr.net/2014/03/automatic-memory-managem... .)