Rust: What is the difference between Mutex and Atomic types?

Mutex — lock-based. Atomic — lock-free operations.

Mutex:

• Lock-based synchronization.
• Can block.
• For complex data.

Atomic:

• Lock-free operations.
• Non-blocking.
• For simple types.

1use std::sync::atomic::{AtomicUsize, Ordering};
2use std::sync::Mutex;
3
4let counter = AtomicUsize::new(0);
5counter.fetch_add(1, Ordering::SeqCst);
6
7let data = Mutex::new(vec![1, 2, 3]);
8data.lock().unwrap().push(4);

Key: Atomic for counters/flags, Mutex for complex data.