Musl's Default Allocator: A 7x Performance Nightmare!

A real-world benchmark revealed a shocking 7x slowdown using Musl's default allocator compared to alternatives. The author strongly recommends all Rust projects immediately switch to a different allocator like mimalloc or jemalloc by adding a few lines of code to their `main.rs`. The root cause is thread contention during memory allocation, worsening with more threads or allocations. Switching is advised even if not targeting Musl or for single-threaded programs. The author explains the reasons for using Musl (cross-compilation and static executables) and details the discovery process. Numerous other projects have encountered this issue, with benchmarks on various core counts showing slowdowns up to 700x! The author concludes by urging a switch to a more performant allocator.