Awesome
embedded-wasm-apps
Run native, statically-compiled apps on any platform, using WebAssembly.
Examples include <img src="https://cdn.rawgit.com/simple-icons/simple-icons/develop/icons/assemblyscript.svg" width="18" height="18" /> AssemblyScript,
<img src="https://cdn.rawgit.com/simple-icons/simple-icons/develop/icons/rust.svg" width="18" height="18" /> Rust,
<img src="https://cdn.rawgit.com/simple-icons/simple-icons/develop/icons/cplusplus.svg" width="18" height="18" /> C/C++,
<img src="https://cdn.rawgit.com/simple-icons/simple-icons/develop/icons/go.svg" width="18" height="18" /> TinyGo,
<img src="https://cdn.rawgit.com/simple-icons/simple-icons/develop/icons/zig.svg" width="18" height="18" /> Zig,
Virgil,
WAT,
etc.
How it works
This does not use Wasm3
engine. The approach is similar to WasmBoxC
or RLBox
:
- Compile source code to
wasm
- Translate
wasm
toC
usingwasm2c
- Compile produced
C
, link with a thin runtime implementation using the native platform toolchain
Benefits
- Language/toolchain decoupling
- Resilience against attacks (RCE, Control-flow hijacking)
- Sandboxing / SFI (Software Fault Isolation)
- Enables wasm transformations, like instrumentation or
gas metering
- Software-based memory virtualization
- Moderate runtime overhead (mostly depends on the source language/runtime)
- Small performance hit (~10-30% slowdown compared to native modules)
- Moderate binary size increase
- Highly portable
Example
$ make APP=rust
Finished release [optimized] target(s) in 0.00s
$ pio run -e esp32 -t upload
$ pio device monitor
Initializing WebAssembly...
š¦ Rust is running!
$ make APP=assemblyscript
> npm run asbuild:optimized
$ pio run -e esp32 -t upload
$ pio device monitor
Initializing WebAssembly...
š AssemblyScript is running!
$ make APP=tinygo
$ pio run -e esp32 -t upload
$ pio device monitor
Initializing WebAssembly...
š¤ TinyGo is running!
Building WASM
apps
Ensure the required tools are in your PATH
:
# AssemblyScript v0.27 (needs Node.js)
make APP=assemblyscript
# Rust 1.80.1
rustup target add wasm32-unknown-unknown
make APP=rust
# C/C++ (needs Clang)
make APP=cpp
# C99 Coremark (needs Clang)
make APP=coremark
# TinyGo v0.33.0 + Go v1.23.0
make APP=tinygo
# Zig v0.13.0
make APP=zig
# Virgil (Aeneas III-7.1632)
make APP=virgil
# WAT
make APP=wat
Resulting WASM file comparison:
AS | C/C++ | Coremark | Rust | TinyGo | Virgil | WAT | Zig |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
3951 | 864 | 10800 | 12264 | 1227 | 315 | 223 | 1057 |
Building and running with PlatformIO
# For ESP32:
pio run -e esp32 -t upload
# For ESP8266:
pio run -e esp8266 -t upload
# For Raspberry Pi Pico:
pio run -e rpi-pico -t upload
# Open serial monitor
pio device monitor --quiet
Building and running with Particle
Requires particle-cli
.
Should work on all Particle devices i.e. Spark Core
, Photon
, Electron
, Argon
, Boron
, P2 / Photon2
:
particle flash MyDevice ./src/*
# Open serial monitor
particle serial monitor --follow
License
This project is released under The MIT License (MIT)