Tech Giants Form Bytecode Alliance to Expand WebAssembly Beyond Browsers
Mozilla, Intel, Red Hat, and Fastly launch the Bytecode Alliance to push WebAssembly outside of traditional web browsers into broader software infrastructure.
Mozilla, Intel, Red Hat, and Fastly form the Bytecode Alliance, a new open-source group dedicated to expanding WebAssembly beyond the web browser. The alliance focuses on building new software foundations using WebAssembly and the WebAssembly System Interface (WASI) to create a secure platform for running untrusted code across any infrastructure or device.
WebAssembly traditionally allows developers to run compiled programs from languages like C++, and Rust inside browsers at near-native speeds without relying on JavaScript. While major browser engines currently support it, mass adoption remains limited and the barrier to entry stays high for many developers, prompting this strategic shift toward server-side and edge computing use cases.
Businesses show significant interest in using WebAssembly's sandboxed environments to safely mix untrusted code components with trusted systems outside of the browser. To support this mission, alliance members contribute various runtimes and tools, including Wasmtime, Fastly's Lucet, and Intel's WebAssembly Micro Runtime, though former WebAssembly partners Microsoft and Google do not participate in this new group.