Speaking as someone who likes Crystal and has written a few libraries and tools in it (as well as contributed to the reference implementation/stdlib/compiler a

Speaking as someone who likes Crystal and has written a few libraries and tools in it (as well as contributed to the reference implementation/stdlib/compiler a bit): 1. Crystal is only superficially similar to Ruby; those familiar with Ruby will find its syntax familiar, but the language's syntax, semantics, and even stdlib diverge substantially once you go beyond basic things. In many cases I'd argue that Crystal's stdlib is way better planned and thought through than Ruby's was, but those differences add friction. 2. Despite only being superficially similar, Crystal is still heavily associated with Ruby, and Ruby's moment is (perceived to be) "over" in terms of the tech/stack hype cycle. 3. Crystal's value proposition is somewhat limited: Go, Nim, etc. all fill similar niches, and Rust has been eating into those niches as well (including for people like me). With all that being said, I think Crystal is a great language, and I would love to see it be used (and gleaned from) more. In particular, I think that Crystal's stdlib is well designed, that the macro system is extremely intuitive and way better than Rust's, and that Crystal's FFI is way more ergonomic than most languages in its cohort (although Rust's is about as good).