No jemalloc by default - The Edition Guide

# No jemalloc by default

Long, long ago, Rust had a large, Erlang-like runtime. We chose to use jemalloc instead of the system allocator, because it often improved performance over the default system one. Over time, we shed more and more of this runtime, and eventually almost all of it was removed, but jemalloc was not. We didn't have a way to choose a custom allocator, and so we couldn't really remove it without causing a regression for people who do need jemalloc.

Also, saying that jemalloc was always the default is a bit UNIX-centric, as it was only the default on some platforms. Notably, the MSVC target on Windows has shipped the system allocator for a long time.

While jemalloc usually has great performance, that's not always the case. Additionally, it adds about 300kb to every Rust binary. We've also had a host of other issues with jemalloc in the past. It has also felt a little strange that a systems language does not default to the system's allocator.

For all of these reasons, once Rust 1.28 shipped a way to choose a global allocator, we started making plans to switch the default to the system allocator, and allow you to use jemalloc via a crate. In Rust 1.32, we've finally finished this work, and by default, you will get the system allocator for your programs.

If you'd like to continue to use jemalloc, use the jemallocator crate. In your Cargo.toml:

    jemallocator = "0.1.8"

And in your crate root:

    #[global_allocator]
    static ALLOC: jemallocator::Jemalloc = jemallocator::Jemalloc;

That's it! If you don't need jemalloc, it's not forced upon you, and if you do need it, it's a few lines of code away.