As an alternative, I’m working on reimplementing Wolfram Language/ Mathematica in Rust: https://woxi.ad-si.com/ A lot of Wolfram Language code just works already!

How does it compare performance-wise?

For short scripts, it’s often faster because there’s less initialization overhead. In general, though, it largely depends on whether the functions you’re using already have optimized implementations in Woxi. That’s what I’m currently working on, so I’d appreciate any feedback on what doesn’t work for you yet!