rustix

rustix provides safe Rust bindings to POSIX-like syscalls with an optional linux_raw backend that bypasses libc entirely, issuing direct syscalls with vDSO optimization. This makes it both safer (Rust types instead of C casts) and potentially faster than raw libc calls.

When to use it

Use rustix for any syscall interaction beyond socket configuration (which socket2 handles better). File I/O, process management, signal handling, memory mapping — rustix covers the full POSIX surface. The linux_raw backend is particularly valuable for static musl builds and minimal-dependency environments.

Complementary with socket2

socket2 provides the ergonomic Socket wrapper for advanced socket options. rustix provides everything else. Both are keep-worthy in a production stack.