cc vs rustversion

Short answerBy steady daily use, cc is bigger: 3,852,250 real downloads a day against 2,686,635 for rustversion (1.4x). 4,294 crates depend on cc and 652 on rustversion. cc last shipped 1 day ago, rustversion 4 months ago.

cc

Widely used

Widely used and steady.

4,294 crates depend on it; downloads don't spike on releases.

A build-time dependency for Cargo build scripts to assist in invoking the native C compiler to compile native C code into a static archive to be linked into Rust code.

rustversion

Established

Established and steady.

652 crates depend on it; no release in the last 90 days, so its count is all steady use.

Conditional compilation according to rustc compiler version

ccrustversion · 100% = that crate's normal quiet day, so a spike to 300% is triple its usual traffic

Every number, side by side

Same window, same method	cc	rustversion
Real downloads a day	3,852,250	2,686,635
Crates that depend on it	4,294	652
Last release	1.10.0, 1 day ago	1.0.23, 4 months ago
Trend vs the field	-4%	-3%
Release-window share	23.9%	0.0%
Downloads in the window	335,134,202	243,497,510
All-time downloads	1,400,087,136	879,046,164
Versions published	230	26
License	MIT OR Apache-2.0	MIT OR Apache-2.0
MSRV	1.65.0	1.31
First published	Dec 16, 2014	Jul 8, 2019

Which to pick

Downloads tell you what is common, not what fits. Each crate's own description above says what it is for; when the jobs differ, pick by the job.
When both fit, prefer the one more crates depend on (cc, 4,294 dependents): more eyes, more answered questions, and you may already have it in your tree.
Check the release dates against your own pace: cc 1 day ago, rustversion 4 months ago.

Also in this space

vcpkgEstablishedA library to find native dependencies in a vcpkg tree at build time in order to be used in Cargo build scripts1,467,123 a day, 135 dependents pkg-configWidely usedA library to run the pkg-config system tool at build time in order to be used in Cargo build scripts2,394,417 a day, 1,241 dependents autocfgPulled inAutomatic cfg for Rust compiler features3,840,273 a day, 82 dependents cfg_aliasesEstablishedA tiny utility to help save you a lot of effort with long winded `#[cfg()]` checks2,163,249 a day, 283 dependents

Compare 4 of them side by side →

Method

Real downloads = the median day with no release that day or the day before, from the crates.io API (Jul 27, 2026 to Oct 23, 2026). Raw crates.io counts include CI and bots and run high (why); the method is from our 90-day study.

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