Runtimes

A runtime provides support for performing operations asynchronously (a reactor) and is responsible for executing futures (an executor). Rust does not have a "built-in" runtime, but several options are available:

  • Tokio: performant, with a well-developed ecosystem of functionality like Hyper for HTTP or Tonic for gRPC.
  • async-std: aims to be a "std for async", and includes a basic runtime in async::task.
  • smol: simple and lightweight

Several larger applications have their own runtimes. For example, Fuchsia already has one.

This slide and its sub-slides should take about 10 minutes.

  • Note that of the listed runtimes, only Tokio is supported in the Rust playground. The playground also does not permit any I/O, so most interesting async things can't run in the playground.

  • Futures are "inert" in that they do not do anything (not even start an I/O operation) unless there is an executor polling them. This differs from JS Promises, for example, which will run to completion even if they are never used.