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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