Frank Denis benchmarks WebAssembly-to-C compilation against modern runtimes like Wasmer and Wasmtime, finding that the C path remains highly competitive even with new 'wide arithmetic' features. By adding support for wide arithmetic to wasm2c, the generated C code outperformed both Wasmer and Wasmtime on geometric mean tests when compiled natively with Zig.
Background
WebAssembly (Wasm) is designed for safe, sandboxed execution in browsers and servers, but native compilation via tools like wasm2c offers an alternative for performance-critical applications. Recent advancements in Wasm runtimes have narrowed the performance gap, prompting renewed interest in hybrid approaches.
- Source
- Lobsters
- Published
- Jul 9, 2026 at 12:23 AM
- Score
- 7.0 / 10