Emscripten
Emscripten is an LLVM/Clang-based compiler that compiles C and C++ source code to WebAssembly (or to a subset of JavaScript known as asm.js, its original compilation target before the advent of WebAssembly in 2017), primarily for execution in web browsers.
| Original author(s) | Alon Zakai |
|---|---|
| Stable release | |
| Repository | |
| Written in | C, C++, JavaScript |
| Type | Compiler |
| License | MIT License, University of Illinois/NCSA Open Source License |
| Website | emscripten |
Emscripten allows applications and libraries written in C or C++ to be compiled ahead of time and run efficiently in web browsers, typically at speeds comparable to or faster than interpreted or dynamically compiled JavaScript. It even emulates an entire POSIX operating system, enabling programmers to use functions from the C standard library (libc).
With the more recent development of the WebAssembly System Interface (WASI) and WebAssembly runtimes such as Node.js, Wasmtime, and Wasmer, Emscripten can also be used to compile to WebAssembly for execution in non-Web embeddings as well.