They do exist in the larger ecosystem, they are just very young. Also, we devs have had "don't build your own crypto" beaten into our heads so often lately that

They do exist in the larger ecosystem, they are just very young. Also, we devs have had "don't build your own crypto" beaten into our heads so often lately that I think people are generally wary of starting new, or using new, projects that haven't already been battle hardened. I've looked at the OpenSSL code, and I have to say that it's not well documented in many cases and easy to make mistakes in it's usage. The rules on when locks are needed vs. not are not always clear, and then the ownership of memory is as confusing as it's always been in C. This is where something like Rust would shine just by cleaning up these interfaces. The Rust OpenSSL bindings, http://sfackler.github.io/rust-openssl/doc/v0.7.10/openssl/ http://sfackler.github.io/rust-openssl/doc/v0.7.10/openssl/ , for example are very sane, and it's difficult to screw up the usage.