If you subscribe to the unified theory of garbage collection [0] then yes shared_ptr does use garbage collection. See also Herb Sutter [1] (describing a differ

If you subscribe to the unified theory of garbage collection [0] then yes shared_ptr does use garbage collection. See also Herb Sutter [1] (describing a different project, but also mentioning shared_ptr): > Q: "Is this garbage collection?" > Of course, and remember that so is reference counting (e.g., shared_ptr). [0] https://www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs6120/2019fa/blog/unified-theory-gc/ https://www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs6120/2019fa/blog/unifie... [1] https://github.com/hsutter/gcpp#q-is-this-garbage-collection https://github.com/hsutter/gcpp#q-is-this-garbage-collection