Who are the main developers who will be working on this project? If the developers are largely used to Node, or Ruby, the package management, and language features might make them more comfortable, and if they are not comfortable with C++ already, the Rust learning curve might be negligible compared to some of the oddities with C++.<p>If you have developers coming from languages like Java or C# which have a structural similarity to C++, or if you have developers already familiar with C++, I would say that there is no need to throw that experience away, and that experience would get you guys farther than trying the new language.<p>In my experience, the clang compiler is very developer friendly in terms of error reporting and features. The only people that I know that say that C++ is old and clunky were those using gcc and C++98. Make is pretty open ended as a scripting tool/build tool, and there are plenty of alternatives if you don't like make.<p>I would choose based on demographics of your team. If you have a bunch of young developers, or if you want to hire a bunch of young developers, Rust is pretty popular with that crowd, and has a lot of language features that will make them feel comfortable. That being said, I only recommend Rust if you have a developer that is very comfortable with it, and can guide you through the borrow checker, whether to use stable or nightly rust, and the foreign function interface. C++ will require more discipline because there is less constraints that prevent you from shooting yourself in the face with code readability and memory safety, but it is proven, and if you have the C++ developers on hand, have them decide on a style guide and review process that works for your team.