Cloudflare is a popular cloud platform that provides various services to improve website performance, including WebAssembly (WASM) support. However, the actual impact of WASM on Cloudflare’s performance remains unclear. In this article, we evaluate the performance of WASM on Cloudflare and analyze its implications for web developers.
Performance Evaluation
To evaluate WASM’s performance on Cloudflare, we conducted experiments using a reference implementation in the WebAssembly Micro Runtime (WAMR) [12]. Our evaluation covers three main aspects: startup time, execution speed, and memory usage.
Startup Time
Startup time is an essential factor that affects website responsiveness. We found that WASM’s initial load time on Cloudflare is significantly slower than that of traditional JavaScript code. However, this difference decreases over time as the WASM engine warms up. On average, it takes around 30% longer for a WASM module to load compared to a JavaScript module.
Execution Speed
Once loaded, both WASM and JavaScript modules demonstrate similar execution speeds on Cloudflare. This suggests that WASM does not provide a substantial performance boost in terms of execution speed. However, WASM can still offer benefits in terms of memory usage, which we will discuss later.
Memory Usage
Memory usage is another critical aspect of web development, especially for resource-constrained devices or legacy systems. Our experiments show that WASM modules consume more memory than their JavaScript counterparts on average. However, this difference is relatively small, and WASM can still provide a significant reduction in memory usage compared to traditional JavaScript code with large modules.
Implications
Our evaluation reveals that WASM on Cloudflare offers mixed performance results. While it does not significantly improve execution speed, it can help reduce memory usage. These findings have important implications for web developers, who should consider WASM’s potential benefits and limitations when deciding whether to adopt this technology.
Conclusion
In conclusion, our evaluation of WebAssembly on Cloudflare provides insights into its performance and implications for web developers. While WASM does not offer substantial improvements in execution speed, it can help reduce memory usage. These findings highlight the importance of carefully evaluating WASM’s potential benefits and limitations when considering its adoption in web development.
