That's news to me. I didn't know D had actors but I like it's meta-programming features because it cuts down on all sorts of boilerplate. I haven't used it that much, I just looked into it briefly for some low-level programming projects.

The best answer I can provide is this document: https://ziglang.org/learn/overview/. It covers the main features of the language and how they compare to other languages like C, C++, and D. I personally think it has enough features like option types instead of null pointers, array bounds checking, generics, compile-time code execution, etc. for writing safe code but others might disagree.

Zig is not memory safe, and is not meaningfully different from C and C++ in this way.

I believe it has release-safe mode, which protects against most use-after-free. This is sufficient safety for most applications, IMO.

I only see it getting safer from here, with some advances on the horizon, such as memory tagging. The language has a lot of potential.

Zig does not have a borrow checker and allows footguns with relative ease. It's a C replacement, after all.

Sounds like you want Nim.