Ask HN: Why don't browsers load websites directly in WASM?
3 FerkiHN 11 7/8/2025, 9:31:14 AM
I've been wondering — modern browsers are optimized to parse and run HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. But what if a browser was built to load and run websites written directly in WebAssembly?
Wouldn’t this improve performance, startup speed, and reduce overhead from parsing multiple formats? Why hasn't anyone created a browser where the default language for sites is WASM?
Is it a technical limitation, security concern, or just lack of interest from the ecosystem?
I’d love to hear what the HN community thinks.
If this concept sounds interesting to you — even if you think it's flawed — I’d love to hear how you would improve or reshape it. Maybe there’s a better way to approach it, or a different angle I haven’t considered.
Feel free to break it down, challenge it, or build on it. That's exactly what I'm here for
From memory, initial page load times are slower
https://github.com/yewstack/yew
https://www.egui.rs/#demo
If you want to know what WASM is actually a good fit for and what not, see https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3746171
Like how operating systems run .exe or ELF binaries — what if a browser did the same but with .wasm? Maybe not for regular documents, but for apps/games/tools where you want full control, performance, and custom UI rendering without relying on the traditional web stack.
Just brainstorming, I’m curious what others think.
and if you are passing your words through a llm before submitting them here, please stop, i'd rather see honest yet broken english