EDUCBA Logo

EDUCBA

MENUMENU
  • Explore
    • EDUCBA Pro
    • PRO Bundles
    • Featured Skills
    • New & Trending
    • Fresh Entries
    • Finance
    • Data Science
    • Programming and Dev
    • Excel
    • Marketing
    • HR
    • PDP
    • VFX and Design
    • Project Management
    • Exam Prep
    • All Courses
  • Blog
  • Enterprise
  • Free Courses
  • Log in
  • Sign Up
Home Software Development Software Development Tutorials Top Differences Tutorial WebAssembly vs Javascript
 

WebAssembly vs Javascript

Updated March 30, 2023

WebAssembly vs Javascript

 

 

Introduction to WebAssembly vs Javascript

Webassembly vs Javascript is defined as, the web assembly is a new type of code which has compact binary code-format and that code can be run on modern web-browsers, it is like a low-level assembly language and it allows the interaction between programs and their host environment, whereas, the Javascript is a scripting language which can be used in web development on client-side as well as on the server-side that allows us to make dynamic and attractive web-pages, the functions of it may check a web form before submitting and it makes sure that all the fields of it have been filled.

Watch our Demo Courses and Videos

Valuation, Hadoop, Excel, Mobile Apps, Web Development & many more.

Head to Head Comparison between WebAssembly vs Javascript (Infographics)

Below are the top 10 differences between WebAssembly vs Javascript:

WebAssembly vs Javascript-info

Comparison Table of Webassembly vs Javascript

S.N. Webassembly Javascript
1. It is developed by W3C, Mozilla, Microsoft, Google, Apple. Whereas, it is developed by Netscape.
2. Inside the web browser, it has a faster loading time because it only needs to load the already compiled files. Whereas, to load JavaScript it is slower than webassembly as the browser needs to load all the “.js” files which are narrative.
3. The execution of code in webassembly is faster than the Javascript. Whereas, the execution of code is slower in Javascript.
4. It is not a programming language. Where it is a programming language.
5. Webassembly allows the execution of the applications on the browser which are written in c or c++, and it provides a virtual machine that running at the top of the environment of Javascript. Whereas it is not designed to support local applications but it is not designed for oriented infrastructure to agree with its objects.
6. It delivered the output via a small-sized binary format. Where the Javascript delivered its output in a human-readable format.
7. It is just faster. But it is highly flexible.
8. This allows the code to be viewed, debugged, and written by hand as it is strongly typed. On the other hand, it is dynamically typed because it does not require declaring the variables explicitly before they are used.
9. It is designed to execute and integrate standalone in its environments as well as in other environment. Where it is mainly used for validation which allows executing of complex actions and also allowing the interaction between different websites.
10. The purpose of it is to enable high-performance applications on the web page. Whereas, this adds dynamic and interactive elements to websites which is the purpose in this than webassembly.

Key differences of Webassembly vs Javascript

  • Performance and loading time:

In Javascript when we called the browser which is inside of it then the file of it has been downloaded first and then get parsed and after that, the source code has been converted from with the help of parser into byte code, and in the browser, the Javascript engine executes the code, the Javascript engine is very powerful hence the performance and the loading time is very fast as compared to the webassembly.

  • Coding:

We can easily write the code in Javascript and code which we wrote is in human-readable format and that can be saved in .js file format, when we want to use that inside the browser then we need to use a tag such as <script>, whereas, webassembly allows to write code in text format which difficult to write and it can be saved in “.wat” format, it cannot allow executing the “.wat” file inside the browser so that has been converted by using tools which are available online.

  • Execution:

The execution of code in webassembly is just 20% slower than the execution of code in JavaScript, webassembly is faster in execution than Javascript, if we have some source code containing functions then first it needs to be parsed then it converts all the strings into tokens and generates abstract syntax tree when this generated then V8 will go directly to the machine code then machine code generated and then we have to compile the functions there is no need to make any attempt to increase the speed, whereas, in web assembly during the compilation it already has optimization so there is no need to parse and also we have an optimized binary which can directly hook into the backend and then it generates the machine code and at the front end all the optimizations have been done by the compiler, it means the execution of web assembly is more efficient than JavaScript because it has few steps in the process.

  • Memory management:

In JavaScript the memory assignment can be done, when variables have been created and when the memory is not in use then it released the memory and that memory is added into the garbage collection, whereas, webassembly stored the memory in array buffer that hold the related data, by using Javascript API we can allocate memory in webassembly, it stores memory in the form of an array which is called as a flat memory model and that model is easy to understand, and it is helpful to perform the execution, but it has very complex calculation which takes more time and it does not support garbage collection due to that the memory cannot be reused so that memory is wasted in this case, so we can say that this is the disadvantage of webassembly.

  • Debugging:

Javascript provides output in human-readable format and it can be easy for debugging also we can add breakpoints in the code of Javascript and inside the browser, the code of it can easily debug, whereas, in webassembly the code is in text format, that can easy to read but it very difficult for debugging, inside the browser the Firefox will allow us to view the code of webassembly in “.wat” format, it cannot allow adding a breakpoint in “.wat” files of it and in future it may be available.

Conclusion

In this article, we conclude that the performance of the web assembly is a low-level byte code for the web which is faster and efficient than JavaScript and the loading time and the execution time is also faster than the JavaScript, as we have seen in comparison web assembly may replace the Javascript.

Recommended Articles

This is a guide to WebAssembly vs Javascript. Here we discuss WebAssembly vs Javascript key differences with infographics and comparison table, respectively. You may also have a look at the following articles to learn more –

  1. Lua vs JavaScript
  2. Dart vs JavaScript
  3. CSS vs JavaScript
  4. JSP vs JavaScript

Primary Sidebar

Footer

Follow us!
  • EDUCBA FacebookEDUCBA TwitterEDUCBA LinkedINEDUCBA Instagram
  • EDUCBA YoutubeEDUCBA CourseraEDUCBA Udemy
APPS
EDUCBA Android AppEDUCBA iOS App
Blog
  • Blog
  • Free Tutorials
  • About us
  • Contact us
  • Log in
Courses
  • Enterprise Solutions
  • Free Courses
  • Explore Programs
  • All Courses
  • All in One Bundles
  • Sign up
Email
  • [email protected]

ISO 10004:2018 & ISO 9001:2015 Certified

© 2025 - EDUCBA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THE CERTIFICATION NAMES ARE THE TRADEMARKS OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS.

EDUCBA

*Please provide your correct email id. Login details for this Free course will be emailed to you
Loading . . .
Quiz
Question:

Answer:

Quiz Result
Total QuestionsCorrect AnswersWrong AnswersPercentage

Explore 1000+ varieties of Mock tests View more

EDUCBA

*Please provide your correct email id. Login details for this Free course will be emailed to you
EDUCBA
Free Software Development Course

Web development, programming languages, Software testing & others

By continuing above step, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
*Please provide your correct email id. Login details for this Free course will be emailed to you
EDUCBA

*Please provide your correct email id. Login details for this Free course will be emailed to you

EDUCBA Login

Forgot Password?

🚀 Limited Time Offer! - 🎁 ENROLL NOW