I spent some time with Zig a while ago. Here are my conclusions:

- The string handling is braindead

- The compiler and stdlib is immature. This seems like the first programming language the guy has written. You should have a few failures to learn from before you make a Serious Programming Language imo.

- Code run at compile time is a neat idea but has a weird syntax and really really complicates the internals of the compiler and related tooling.

Unfortunately this is no C replacement IMO.