What is WebAssembly used for?

List of the many examples of uses of this intermediate language.

The committee that defines the Wasm language gave us a list of possible uses of the language. Note that while it is expected that many programming languages will be compiled to wasm in the future, replacing JavaScript in the browser by another language compiled to wasm is not contemplated...

However, we can fully build an application in Wasm in certain cases, for a game for example, if it has its own interface, otherwise the most frequent use case is an HTML and JavaScript interface with a Wasm library.

For the browser

• Editing of video and music.
• Games, even in 3D with OpenGL.
• Collaborative and decentralized applications.
• Augmented reality.
• Image recognition.
• Vector applications.
• Interactive and possibly educational software.
• Visualization and scientific simulation.
• Programming language interpreter.
• Development tools (editors, debuggers).
• Creation of an OS in the browser.
• Cryptography.
• Local web server.
• Database client.
• Etc ...

Outside the browser

• Processing on the server side, on behalf of an online application.
• Server side application.
• Native secure applications on mobile.
• Replacing DLL with Wasm modules.
• Devices without operating systems.

Inspired by the list - not exhaustive - published by WebAssembly.org.