An Evaluation of WebAssembly in Non-Web Environments

In 2017, WebAssembly, a portable low-level byte-code, was released by the four major web browser makers to address the challenges presented by the maturation of the web and the rise of sophisticated and interactive applications such as 3D visualization, audio, and video streaming, and online games. JavaScript heretofore was the only built-in language of the web, and unfortunately, it is not well outfitted for the rich applications that have come to dominate the web today. Since its initial release, WebAssembly has made great strides on the web. With the WebAssembly System Interface release in March 2018, which allows WebAssembly to communicate with the operating system, it has become possible to run WebAssembly applications outside web browsers. This paper reviews the current state of WebAssembly and its system interface, describes the costs and benefits of these technologies for applications in different environments, and evaluates performance and portability. Our performance measurements demonstrate that WebAssembly is generally faster than JavaScript and, in some cases, can approach native code performance. Despite its limitations which make WebAssembly useless for specific applications domains, it nevertheless, has the potential to be beneficial in many environments and is likely to grow further even outside its original web environment.