Not really. Reference counting doesn't prevent reference loops, and reference loops which aren't reachable from code are memory leaks - which is why garbage col

Not really. Reference counting doesn't prevent reference loops, and reference loops which aren't reachable from code are memory leaks - which is why garbage collectors do sweeps to detect unreachable memory. Rust doesn't have any kind of automatic cleanup of unreachable memory if you bypass the borrow-checker. Rust is a language for memory management. There is no way to write code in Rust without thinking about memory.