Rust Glancer: Rust LSP using 100x less RAM(rust-glancer.github.io)
418 points by matklad 53 days ago | 109 comments
tl;dr: Rust Glancer is an alternative Rust LSP that targets <100MB RAM usage (vs rust-analyzer's multi-GB footprint) by abandoning incremental analysis in favor of a frozen, filesystem-persisted index that reloads instantly after editor restart. It's built on rust-analyzer's syntax library and Chalk for trait solving, and while incomplete, it supports type inference, macro expansion, and common LSP actions like goto-definition and completions. The author acknowledges heavy LLM use during development but reviewed all code, and positions it as a tradeoff—slower and less complete than rust-analyzer, but viable for low-memory machines.
HN Discussion:
  • ↑Enthusiasm for the project as a solution to rust-analyzer's excessive memory usage
  • ↑Appreciation for the author's responsible and transparent approach to LLM-assisted development
  • ~Disappointment that rust-analyzer has reached a state requiring an alternative, echoing the rls situation
  • ↑Criticism of rust-analyzer's design choice to avoid disk caching, validating the article's approach
  • •Technical curiosity about implementation details like disk persistence