Herb Sutter gave a really great talk on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfmTagWcqoE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfmTagWcqoE He has 3 guidelines: 1.

Herb Sutter gave a really great talk on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfmTagWcqoE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfmTagWcqoE He has 3 guidelines: 1. Prefer scoped lifetimes by default (local members) 2. Else prefer unique_ptr and containers 3. Else consider shared_ptr His whole talk gives examples that show the flexibility of unique_ptr and how modern C++ can express ownership. See slide 5 here: https://github.com/CppCon/CppCon2016/blob/master/Presentations/Lifetime%20Safety%20By%20Default%20-%20Making%20Code%20Leak-Free%20by%20Construction/Lifetime%20Safety%20By%20Default%20-%20Making%20Code%20Leak-Free%20by%20Construction%20-%20Herb%20Sutter%20-%20CppCon%202016.pdf https://github.com/CppCon/CppCon2016/blob/master/Presentatio...