Emscripten vs WebAssembly

Overview

Emscripten

Stacks20

Followers20

Votes0

GitHub Stars26.9K

Forks3.5K

WebAssembly

Stacks223

Followers218

Votes0

GitHub Stars8.2K

Forks818

Emscripten vs WebAssembly: What are the differences?

Introduction:

Emscripten and WebAssembly are both technologies that enable the execution of code in web browsers. However, there are some key differences between the two. This article will highlight the major differences between Emscripten and WebAssembly.

Compilation Process: Emscripten is a compiler toolchain that compiles C/C++ code into JavaScript, while WebAssembly is a binary instruction format for a stack-based virtual machine. Emscripten first translates C/C++ code into LLVM bitcode and then compiles it into JavaScript using the Emscripten compiler. On the other hand, WebAssembly directly compiles code into binary format, which is then executed in the browser.
Programming Languages Supported: Emscripten primarily supports C and C++ languages for compilation into JavaScript. It leverages LLVM as an intermediate representation to handle different programming languages. WebAssembly, on the other hand, supports a wider range of programming languages, including C, C++, Rust, and even languages like Python and Kotlin through additional tooling.
Performance: Emscripten compiles C/C++ code into JavaScript, which can be slower than native code execution. Although Emscripten provides optimizations and WebGL acceleration for certain operations, the performance is still limited by the JavaScript execution engine. On the other hand, WebAssembly provides near-native performance as it is designed to be executed at near-native speed, making it more suitable for computationally intensive tasks.
Code Size: Emscripten generates JavaScript code that is larger in size compared to the corresponding WebAssembly code. This is because JavaScript is a higher-level language, and the generated code may include additional runtime and compatibility features. WebAssembly, being a binary format, has a smaller code size, which improves loading speed and reduces bandwidth consumption.
Interoperability: Emscripten allows developers to interact with JavaScript code seamlessly. It provides a JavaScript API that allows invoking JavaScript functions from C/C++ code and vice versa. WebAssembly also supports interoperability with JavaScript, but it introduces a more efficient and direct interface for interaction, reducing the overhead involved in calling functions across the WebAssembly-JavaScript boundary.
Debugging and Tooling: Emscripten provides better debugging and tooling support compared to WebAssembly. Emscripten generates JavaScript code that can be easily debugged using standard web development tools like browser debugging consoles. WebAssembly, being a binary format, is not easily human-readable and requires additional tools like debugging extensions for accurate introspection.

In summary, Emscripten is a compiler toolchain that translates C/C++ code into JavaScript, providing better debugging and tooling support. WebAssembly, on the other hand, is a binary instruction format that offers near-native performance and supports a wider range of programming languages, with smaller code size and improved interoperability with JavaScript.

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Manual

Detailed Comparison

Emscripten	WebAssembly
This allows applications and libraries originally designed to run as standard executables to be integrated into client side web applications.	It is an open standard that defines a portable binary code format for executable programs, and a corresponding textual assembly language, as well as interfaces for facilitating interactions between such programs and their host environment.
Compile C and C++ code into JavaScript; Compile any other code that can be translated into LLVM bitcode into JavaScript; Compile the C/C++ runtimes of other languages into JavaScript	Efficient and fast; Safe; Open and debuggable; Part of the open web platform
Statistics
GitHub Stars 26.9K	GitHub Stars 8.2K
GitHub Forks 3.5K	GitHub Forks 818
Stacks 20	Stacks 223
Followers 20	Followers 218
Votes 0	Votes 0
Pros & Cons
No community feedback yet	Cons 2 Security issues
Integrations
Grunt gulp Gatsby Vue CLI	Rust C++ C lang

What are some alternatives to Emscripten, WebAssembly?

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Elixir

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.

Related Comparisons

Emscripten vs WebAssembly: What are the differences?

Introduction:

Compilation Process: Emscripten is a compiler toolchain that compiles C/C++ code into JavaScript, while WebAssembly is a binary instruction format for a stack-based virtual machine. Emscripten first translates C/C++ code into LLVM bitcode and then compiles it into JavaScript using the Emscripten compiler. On the other hand, WebAssembly directly compiles code into binary format, which is then executed in the browser.
Programming Languages Supported: Emscripten primarily supports C and C++ languages for compilation into JavaScript. It leverages LLVM as an intermediate representation to handle different programming languages. WebAssembly, on the other hand, supports a wider range of programming languages, including C, C++, Rust, and even languages like Python and Kotlin through additional tooling.
Performance: Emscripten compiles C/C++ code into JavaScript, which can be slower than native code execution. Although Emscripten provides optimizations and WebGL acceleration for certain operations, the performance is still limited by the JavaScript execution engine. On the other hand, WebAssembly provides near-native performance as it is designed to be executed at near-native speed, making it more suitable for computationally intensive tasks.
Code Size: Emscripten generates JavaScript code that is larger in size compared to the corresponding WebAssembly code. This is because JavaScript is a higher-level language, and the generated code may include additional runtime and compatibility features. WebAssembly, being a binary format, has a smaller code size, which improves loading speed and reduces bandwidth consumption.
Interoperability: Emscripten allows developers to interact with JavaScript code seamlessly. It provides a JavaScript API that allows invoking JavaScript functions from C/C++ code and vice versa. WebAssembly also supports interoperability with JavaScript, but it introduces a more efficient and direct interface for interaction, reducing the overhead involved in calling functions across the WebAssembly-JavaScript boundary.
Debugging and Tooling: Emscripten provides better debugging and tooling support compared to WebAssembly. Emscripten generates JavaScript code that can be easily debugged using standard web development tools like browser debugging consoles. WebAssembly, being a binary format, is not easily human-readable and requires additional tools like debugging extensions for accurate introspection.

Emscripten vs WebAssembly

Overview