Why is webAssembly function almost 300 time slower than same JS function

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Andreas describes a number of good reasons why the JavaScript implementation was initially observed to be x300 faster. However, there are a number of other issues with your code.

  1. This is a classic ‘micro benchmark’, i.e. the code that you are testing is so small, that the other overheads within your test loop are a significant factor. For example, there is an overhead in calling WebAssembly from JavaScript, which will factor in your results. What are you trying to measure? raw processing speed? or the overhead of the language boundary?
  2. Your results vary wildly, from x300 to x2, due to small changes in your test code. Again, this is a micro benchmark issue. Others have seen the same when using this approach to measure performance, for example this post claims wasm is x84 faster, which is clearly wrong!
  3. The current WebAssembly VM is very new, and an MVP. It will get faster. Your JavaScript VM has had 20 years to reach its current speed. The performance of the JS <=> wasm boundary is being worked on and optimised right now.

For a more definitive answer, see the joint paper from the WebAssembly team, which outlines an expected runtime performance gain of around 30%

Finally, to answer your point:

Whats the point of WebAssembly if it does not optimise

I think you have misconceptions around what WebAssembly will do for you. Based on the paper above, the runtime performance optimisations are quite modest. However, there are still a number of performance advantages:

  1. Its compact binary format mean and low level nature means the browser can load, parse and compile the code much faster than JavaScript. It is anticipated that WebAssembly can be compiled faster than your browser can download it.
  2. WebAssembly has a predictable runtime performance. With JavaScript the performance generally increases with each iteration as it is further optimised. It can also decrease due to se-optimisation.

There are also a number of non-performance related advantages too.

For a more realistic performance measurement, take a look at:

  • Its use within Figma
  • Results from using it with PDFKit

Both are practical, production codebases.

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