Verdict

Question	Verdict
Safer than permanent os.remove / bare rm?	Yes — recoverable FreeDesktop trash + rm fail-safes
Safer than trash-cli?	Roughly equivalent FreeDesktop correctness; stronger rm-flag fail-safes on put
Better as a daily driver for this niche?	Yes for native multi-call + in-process Python
Faster?	Yes on the measured fixtures (see dated table; not universal)

Reproduce

cargo build --release
export RTRASH_BIN=$PWD/target/release/rtrash
python3 benches/compare_trash_cli.py | tee compare-trash-cli.log

Fixture: 400 small files + multi-file directory tree; two trials; put then empty with --trash-dir pin. trash-cli 0.24.5.26 on the verification host.

Measured results (Linux x86₆₄, 2026-07-07)

Tool	put avg (s)	empty avg (s)
rtrash release	0.00507	0.00267
trash-cli 0.24.5.26	0.0674	0.0334
speedup	~13×	~12×

Both tools: ec=0, entries=401 after put, empty leaves files_left=0 info_left=0, LIST_OK for a single-file put.

An earlier same-host-class run (2026-07-05) reported about ~19× put / ~13× empty; prefer the 2026-07-07 numbers as current.