WebAssembly (Wasm) allows you to compile native code and run it in a secure and performant way in the browser. The WASI project started enabling Wasm to run outside the web browser in environments such as edge computing and cloud microservices. Docker has also recently announced support for Wasm, allowing it to be used as a lightweight alternative to Linux containers.
Whether Wasm will replace containers remains to be seen but it’s definitely worth learning more about it. In this talk, I’ll introduce Wasm, the terminology and landscape around it, and its current state as a server side technology.