seniorRust

What is the difference between Arc and Rc in Rust architecture?

Updated May 24, 2026

Short answer

Rc is single-threaded reference counting; Arc is atomic and thread-safe.

Deep explanation

Rc uses non-atomic counters for performance in single-threaded contexts. Arc uses atomic operations for thread safety but has higher overhead. Arc enables shared ownership across threads, commonly used in async systems and parallel workloads.

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