Memory safe languages that are not garbage collected are not all that common. Ada and Rust are two examples.

With great care C++ and zig can be.

I’m sure there’s a good reason a lot of the big players and the community at large have picked up rust though. Docs, error messages, cargo community etc.

I would argue that Rust does bring a lot to the table. I certainly would never code in C for work but I’ll happily reach for Rust.