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Work · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to Jaws – a JavaScript to WASM ahead-of-time compiler

I've open sourced a JavaScript to WASM compiler. It's an experimental tool, but given the semantics I already implemented, I'm fairly certain I am able to eventually cover 100% of JavaScript spec. Any ideas, questions or critique welcomed! If you are interested in WASM, especially with new proposals like WASM GC or exception handling, it might be a good source of seeing these features in action - the project has a few thousand lines of hand written WAT so far.

Jaws is an open-source ahead-of-time compiler that converts JavaScript code into WebAssembly. Designed for developers interested in WebAssembly and its emerging features, the experimental tool demonstrates practical… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Jaws – a JavaScript to WASM ahead-of-time compiler launched in 2024; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

  1. 1

    As a personal project I wrote a really tiny Wat 2 Wasm compiler in Go. Mainly for demonstrative and educational purposes. It was tough: I didn't know anything about WebAssembly internals and I'm a newbie with Go... so I tried to document it as much as I could for anyone that would like to approach the quest in the future! It misses a lot of features (that will be gradually implemented). Any feedback is welcomed!! Demo: https://luna-demo.vercel.app

    2022 · github.com · its alternatives →

  2. 2

    Web49: WebAssembly Interpeter. Contribute to FastVM/Web49 development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

  3. 3

    repo of my sizecoding entries. Contribute to ilmenit/sizecoding development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  4. 4

    This is the entire Firefox browser rendering to a element. Gecko, all UI components, and the Spidermonkey JS engine are all compiled and running in WebAssembly. Here are a few things you might find interesting: - This is fully end to end encrypted! We use the WISP protocol for TCP-over-websockets. - There is a novel WASM->JS JIT for experimental site speedup - This port cost over 25k in opus/fable tokens for debugging and JIT research This was just a fun experiment to push the boundaries of WebAssembly. For a more usable "browser in browser" experience, we also built…

    Jul 2026 · developer.puter.com · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    We’ve reached a major milestone in making any software run with WebAssembly. Thanks to the newest release of Wasmer (4.4) and the Wasmer JS SDK (0.8.0) ...

    2024 · wasmer.io · its alternatives →

  6. 6

    QuickBEAM is a JavaScript runtime embedded inside the Erlang/OTP VM. If you’re building a full-stack app, JavaScript tends to leak in anyway — frontend, SSR, or third-party code. QuickBEAM runs that JavaScript inside OTP supervision trees. Each runtime is a process with a `Beam` global that can: - call Elixir code - send/receive messages - spawn and monitor processes - inspect runtime/system state It also provides browser-style APIs backed by OTP/native primitives (fetch, WebSocket, Worker, BroadcastChannel, localStorage, native DOM, etc.). This makes it usable for: - SSR…

    Mar 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  7. 7

    This TypeScript package allows you to safely execute JavaScript code within a WebAssembly sandbox using the QuickJS engine. Perfect for isolating and running untrusted code securely, it leverages the lightweight and fast QuickJS engine compiled to WebAssembly, providing a robust environment for code execution. Features - *Security*: Run untrusted JavaScript code in a safe, isolated environment. - *File System*: Can mount a virtual file system - *Custom Node Modules*: Custom node modules are mountable - *Fetch Client*: Can provide a fetch client to make http(s) calls - *Test-Runner*: Includes…

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  8. 8

    🐹🕸️ WebAssembly runtime for Go. Contribute to wasmerio/wasmer-go development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2019 · github.com · its alternatives →

  9. 9

    Go compiler for small places. Microcontrollers, WebAssembly (WASM/WASI), and command-line tools. Based on LLVM. - tinygo-org/tinygo

    2018 · github.com · its alternatives →

  10. 10

    a very (x 10) basic wasm console. Contribute to rajatjindal/wasm-console development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  11. 11AT

    Hello, I'm building a WebAssembly compiler and documenting the process in the meantime. This aims to be a tool for demonstration and education purpose. It doesn't aim to do fancy stuff nor to replace existing ones. I'm building this to learn and to improve and hopefully it can be useful for others as well :) From last time I've presented the idea, I've implemented more basic features on Luna and I've built a custom and tiny runtime for Luna! (documenting it of course). Any feedback is really appreciated :) Repo: https://github.com/thomscoder/luna

    2022 · luna-demo.vercel.app · its alternatives →

  12. 12

    A self-hostable Wasm sandbox for JavaScript workers.

    Jun 2026 · kyushu.dev · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    In the [first article in this series](<https://wasmer.io/posts/wasm-as-universal-binary-format-part-1-native-executables>) we demonstrated how you can c...

    2022 · wasmer.io · its alternatives →

  14. 14

    Hi HN! We (pdubroy & marianoguerra) just launched an online book called WebAssembly from the Ground Up. It's an online book to learn Wasm by building a simple compiler in JavaScript. This is the book we wish we'd had 3 years ago. Unlike many WebAssembly resources that focus on use cases and tooling, we wanted a deep dive into how Wasm actually works. We focus on the core of WebAssembly: the module format and the instruction set. We think the low-level details — the "virtual ISA" — are the most interesting part, and we had the crazy idea that writing a compiler is the best way to learn it.…

    2025 · wasmgroundup.com · its alternatives →

  15. 15CT
  16. 16WW
  17. 17

    A safe eval library based on WebAssembly and Duktape/QuickJS. - maple3142/wasm-jseval

    2020 · github.com · its alternatives →

  18. 18

    Hi HN! I’m Syrus, from the Wasmer team. We just released the new version of WAPM that is an order of magnitude better than the previous one (that we also announced here in HN two years ago! [0]), enabling an incredible experience for using and publishing WebAssembly packages. The tech stack that we are using includes: * Python and Django (for the backend) with Graphene (for the open GraphQL API [1]) and Django Channels with websockets over GraphQL [2] for subscriptions * Next.js [3] with React-Relay [4] and Tailwind.css [5] for the frontend * WebAssembly and Wasmer [6] (for the online shell)…

    2022 · wapm.io · its alternatives →

  19. 19

    The collaborative video editor that breaks the boundaries of creativity, enabling you to craft infinite possibilities with your team.

    2020 · modfy.video · its alternatives →

  20. 20

    JPEG XL decoder in JavaScript using WebAssembly (WASM) - niutech/jxl.js

    2022 · github.com · its alternatives →

  21. 21MT
  22. 22

    Hi everyone, I built a runtime to isolate untrusted code using wasm sandboxes. Basically, it protects your host system from problems that untrusted code can cause. We’ve had a great discussion about sandboxing in Python lately that elaborates a bit more on the problem [1]. In TypeScript, wasm integration is even more natural thanks to the close proximity between both ecosystems. The core is built in Rust. On top of that, I use WASI 0.2 via wasmtime and the component model, along with custom SDKs that keep things as idiomatic as possible. For example, in Python we have a simple decorator:…

    Feb 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  23. 23

    [I'm the author] Spall is a web-accessible profiler that I made to help my web-dev friends load gigabyte+ JSON traces without lunch-break-long load times. Recently, Spall got experimental support for auto-tracing with binary traces (along with an in-progress native-port, to give it more memory headroom), which was used to help track down and fix some hard-to-spot lock contention issues in the Odin-language compiler. I demoed it at the Handmade Seattle conference in October, https:&#x2F;&#x2F;guide.handmade-seattle.com&#x2F;c&#x2F;2022&#x2F;spall&#x2F;, with a head-to-head against Perfetto,…

    2023 · gravitymoth.com · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    Compile WebAssembly to JVM and other WASM tools. Contribute to cretz/asmble development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2017 · github.com · its alternatives →

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