WebAssembly Performance Analysis in Modern Web Applications

WebAssembly Performance Analysis

Introduction

WebAssembly (Wasm) has emerged as a powerful technology for bringing near-native performance to web applications. This research investigates its real-world performance benefits and optimal use cases.

Methodology

Our research focused on:

• Comparative performance analysis between JavaScript and WebAssembly implementations
• Memory usage patterns
• Load time impact
• Browser compatibility considerations

Key Findings

1. Computation-Heavy Tasks

   • WebAssembly showed 15-30% better performance in numerical computations
   • Particularly effective for image processing and 3D rendering

2. Memory Usage

   • Initial load size increased by ~10%
   • Runtime memory usage comparable to JavaScript

3. Development Complexity

   • Higher initial learning curve
   • Better long-term maintainability for complex algorithms

Recommendations

Based on our findings, we recommend using WebAssembly for:

• Complex mathematical operations
• Image and video processing
• Gaming and 3D applications
• Large-scale data processing

Future Work

We plan to explore:

• Integration with modern web frameworks
• Threading and parallel processing
• WebAssembly System Interface (WASI)