Top Rust Projects to Sharpen Your Skills and Build Your Rust Portfolio

Rust is a popular general-purpose programming language that can run on embedded systems. It’s memory-efficient, fast, and guarantees memory safety. In addition, Rust has excellent documentation. This language is used alongside Rust Compiler and Cargo, which are efficient troubleshooting and management tools for your projects.  

The best method to grow and solidify your Rust skills and land lucrative job roles is working on different projects. Moreover, working on Rust projects will help you create a large professional portfolio that you can use during the job search. In this article, you will find a wide arrange of project ideas for beginner, intermediate, and advanced students.

5 Skills That Rust Projects Can Help You Practice

The primary aim of building different Rust projects is to develop your skills. These skills help you stand out in the job market and allow you to become an experienced Rust developer. As you prepare to dive into your own Rust projects, here are five skills you can expect to practice.

• Programming. While working on Rust projects you will naturally become more proficient with the Rust programming language. But that’s not all. You will also learn to code in C, C++, and Java, as several of the projects in this article also call for these languages. 
• Application Security. Safety is one of the key features of Rust. You will learn how to perform software testing and debugging for the overall security of your Rust projects.
• Documentation. Documentation is an important part of the Rust ecosystem. It makes information accessible and helps new users learn faster. As you work on some of the projects below, you will be able to rely on online books, blogs, and user guides to help you.
• Professional Collaboration. Rust boasts an active community of developers who work together on various projects. The projects below will allow you to connect with members of this thriving community and expand your network.
• Data structures. Learning data structures is crucial for software development. Data structures are used to store and organize information. You can also leverage them to increase efficiency and enhance the user experience.

Best Rust Project Ideas for Beginners

You can find Rust project ideas for every level, from beginner all the way to advanced. If you are just beginning your journey into the world of Rust development, try some of these humbler projects that will test your grasp of theoretical concepts as well as your tech skills.

Natural Language Detection

• Rust Skills Practiced: Programming, Documentation

Whatlang is a simple Rust library that focuses on the detection of natural language in a text. This library is used to identify scripts represented by a list of enumerations, also known as enums. This project features a configurable detector and various detection options and functions to detect languages and scripts.

You will also develop an info structure to highlight the outcome of the detection process. Whatlang supports up to 84 languages. This project is based completely on the Rust language and will enhance your programming skills.

JQL JSON CLI Tool

• Rust Skills Practiced: Data Structures, Programming

JQL, or Jira Query Language, uses fields, keywords, operators, functions, and values to filter information when using Jira. It also relies on the command-line interface (CLI) to manage tasks, integrate various tools, and migrate data. In this project, you will build a JSON Query Language CLI tool using Rust, which will improve your understanding of command scripts, general commands, output filters, and asset discovery tools.

File Hosting Service

• Rust Skills Practiced: Coding, App Security

File hosting services allow you to store documents online. You can upload anything from vacation pictures to music to work-related documents. In this project, you will rely on your knowledge of the Rust language framework to develop a file hosting service similar to Dropbox, a service that uses Rust for its file synchronization engine. Rust is an excellent option for this kind of service due to its memory safety capabilities. 

2D Game

• Rust Skills Practiced: Programming, Documentation

Rust is a great language to learn if you are considering becoming a game developer. It possesses powerful features to prevent memory leaks and enhance speed, much like C and C++. In addition, Rust uses a data-oriented approach and offers access to low-level enhancement techniques, which a beginner can tackle. 

Rust is also supported by popular game engines like Amethyst, GGEZ, and Piston. In this project, you will work on a game called Flappy Bird which can be developed using exclusively the Rust ecosystem.

Web App with Yew

• Rust Skills Practiced: Programming, Data Structures

Yew is a Rust framework used to build multi-threaded web apps using WebAssembly. It features a component-based framework that supports the development of interactive user interfaces. Using Yew for web app development minimizes DOM API calls and offloads processing to background threads, which increases performance. 

Best Intermediate Rust Project Ideas

Intermediate Rust projects are perfect for people who have successfully completed beginner projects or are familiar with the basics of Rust. These projects offer more insight on what to expect when you start working on professional projects. In addition, you will continue expanding your knowledge of the Rust ecosystem.

Weld Implementation

• Rust Skills Practiced: Programming, Documentation

Weld is a Rust compiler used to improve application performance and optimize libraries and functions by highlighting the core computations. Weld was developed at Stanford Infolab and has since advanced to become a full fake RESTful API generator. In this project, you will implement a low-level systems research project in Rust using Weld.

Full Stack Web App

• Rust Skills Practiced: Programming, APIs

Rust is ideal if you are considering becoming a full stack developer because it offers efficient memory management and error detection. In addition, Rust facilitates complex processing, compression, and high-level caching for app backends.

In this project, you will build a simple full stack web application. The final product should have a database-backed REST backend. On the front end, there should be a Wasm-based single-page application.

Smart Bookmarking Tool

• Rust Skills Practiced: Application Security, Professional Collaboration

Smart bookmarks are great tools for enhancing productivity. A popular smart bookmarking tool is Facebook’s bunnylol, which allows users to navigate various tools using the URL bar as the command line. In this project, you will build a clone of this Facebook tool using Rocket, a web framework for Rust. 

API with Tokio

• Rust Skills Practiced: Data Structures, Programming, APIs

Tokio is a platform for writing asynchronous applications using the Rust programming language. It is highly scalable, reliable, and fast. Additionally, it provides async I/O, scheduling facilities, and an HTTP-supported server library. In this project, you will use Tokio and Warp to build an asynchronous API. 

Cross Platform Desktop Application

• Rust Skills Practiced: Programming, GUI Frameworks 

Rust is perfect for developing desktop software applications because it is highly scalable, fast, and memory efficient. You can develop high-performing desktop applications using Rust-supported frameworks like Azul, Conrod, and Rust Qt Binding Generator. Moreover, all these platforms support the graphical user interface (GUI) framework.

Best Advanced Rust Project Ideas

Working on advanced Rust projects will set you apart from other job seekers. Completing these projects proves to potential employers that you have the skills and knowledge to work on large-scale, complex assignments. Below we should you advanced project ideas to dip your toes into.

Neural Network Library

• Rust Skills Practiced: Machine Learning, Programming

Neural networks are machine learning are artificial intelligence (AI) subsets that seek to simulate the behavior of the human brain. These systems learn and recreate non-linear relationships, which allows computers to operate with minimal human intervention. In this project, you will develop a neural network inference library like NeuroFlow, RustNN, or DeepFrog.

Operating System

• Rust Skills Practiced: Programming, Quality Assurance

Rust is a good choice if you are seeking to build an operating system due to its performance and memory safety features. In fact, Microsoft uses Rust to manage all the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) in its codebases. Popular operating systems developed using Rust include Theseus, Redox, and intermezzOS.

Blockchain

• Rust Skills Practiced: Data Structures, Blockchain 

A blockchain is a decentralized digital ledger composed of secure blocks that are extremely hard to hack into. Apart from its memory safety features, speed, and reliability, Rust also offers zero-cost abstractions, which makes it ideal for blockchain design. Popular Rust-based blockchains include Lighthouse and OpenEthereum.

Flash Player Emulator

• Rust Skills Practiced: Programming, Clearance

Adobe Flash Player allows you to access videos, audio, games, and other forms of media on computers and mobile devices. However, system updates may render this popular tool useless. Here’s where a flash player emulator like Ruffle, an open source project written in Rust, comes in handy. For this project, your challenge is to build a clone of Ruffle to put your Rust skills to the test. 

Graphical User Interface

• Rust Skills Practiced: Coding, Wireframing, Prototyping

A GUI enables users to interact with electronic devices. For example, the ability to move the pointer around on your computer and click buttons relies on the GUI framework. In this project, you will leverage popular Rust libraries like Druid, Iced, and OrbTK to develop a GUI.

Rust Starter Project Templates

Rust starter project templates will save you time and lines of code. These templates are perfect for beginners who need additional guidance to get started. Below, we consider four Rust templates that will come in handy during your projects.

• Yew Starter Templates. These templates use Trunk, WebAssembly, and other Rust features to help you develop your applications. There are several formats to choose from, including minimal and parcel. 
• Smart Bookmarking Template by Facebook. Meta for Developers features this detailed template for building a smart bookmarking tool using Rust and Rocket.
• Rust-starter. This template is an open command-line interface (CLI) application with libraries to help you develop Rust projects. In addition, the template is well-documented, making it perfect for an amateur application developer.
• Jelly Actix Web Starter. This template works well for web applications that require user account authentication, background jobs, and asynchronous databases. It acts as a bridge between front end and backend services.

Next Steps: Organizing Your Rust Portfolio

Professional portfolios give potential employers insight into your work and skill level. When putting together your online Rust portfolio, follow these tips to improve your candidacy for any job.

Focus On Your Best Work

By the time you start working on your portfolio, you probably have at least a dozen projects under your belt. However, not everything should be uploaded to your professional portfolio. Instead, include strictly the projects that you are most proud of to show your audience the extent of your skillset.

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Draft Short and Apt Project Descriptions

Each project should have a brief description in which you explain its requirements, the tools and techniques you used, and the skills you practiced. Keep these descriptions concise and free of unnecessary jargon as potential employers may not be familiar with advanced technical terms.

Add Your Resume

Your portfolio site should also include a page that displays your education and relevant work experience. Recruiters are interested in your academic background, employment history, and skills to see if you are a good fit for the job. This page is a good place to link to your LinkedIn profile.

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