{"data":{"slug":"mold","name":"mold","tagline":"MIT drop-in Unix linker by the lld author — multi-x faster links for Rust, C and C++ debug builds","category":"rust","categoryName":"Rust","url":"https://github.com/rui314/mold","github":"https://github.com/rui314/mold","pricing":"open-source","hook":"mold is a drop-in replacement for ld, gold and lld that makes the link step of compiled builds much faster, which matters most in edit-rebuild loops on big Rust, C and C++ projects where linking dominates the wait.","whatsGood":"MIT (rui314/mold), written by the original author of LLVM lld and in production use since 2021. Free path: install from your distro package manager or build from source, then pass -fuse-ld=mold to clang or GCC 12.1+, or add link-arg=-fuse-ld=mold to rustflags in .cargo/config.toml. The project publishes a reproducible benchmark (suite on Zenodo) where mold beats lld by roughly 4 to 16x on large debug links on a 64-core Threadripper. Supports x86-64, ARM, RISC-V, PowerPC, s390x, LoongArch and more. ★~17.5k.","theCatch":"It links ELF binaries for Linux and other Unix-likes; it is not a drop-in for the macOS or Windows system linker. Gains are biggest on many-core machines and large debug outputs; small crates or release builds dominated by codegen will barely notice. Older GCC needs the -B libexec path trick instead of -fuse-ld=mold. Vs wild (newer Rust linker) and lld: mold is the mature, widely adopted fast default.","verdict":"If you build big Rust or C++ on Linux, switching to mold is a one-line config change that cuts link time — free and battle-tested; no help on macOS or Windows.","addedAt":"2026-10-07","featured":false,"domain":"Rust","subSpecialty":"Systems","subcategory":"Systems","tags":["self-host","permissive","active"],"capabilities":["auth"],"surfaces":["Self-host"],"ecosystem":["Rust"],"licenseModel":"OSS/MIT","githubStars":17662,"starsPerWeek":56,"access":"free","archived":false,"repo":{"createdAt":"2020-09-29","pushedAt":"2026-10-19","license":"MIT","archived":false,"checkedAt":"2026-10-19"}},"related":[{"slug":"rust-lang","name":"Rust","tagline":"Systems programming without the footguns"},{"slug":"tokio","name":"Tokio","tagline":"Async runtime for Rust"},{"slug":"axum","name":"Axum","tagline":"Web framework from the Tokio team"},{"slug":"actix-web","name":"Actix Web","tagline":"Fast Rust web framework"},{"slug":"serde","name":"Serde","tagline":"Serialization framework for Rust"}],"links":{"self":"/api/gems/mold","html":"/gems/mold","markdown":"/gems/mold.md","category":"/api/gems?category=rust","categoryPage":"/stacks/rust"}}