The best WebAssembly runtime may still be no runtime at all
Summary
Frank DENIS analyzes WebAssembly runtimes versus a no-runtime approach by translating Wasm to C and compiling with native toolchains. The 2026 benchmarks show wasm-to-C can be competitive, particularly with wide arithmetic, though dedicated runtimes like Wasmer/Wasmtime still lead in some cases. The post argues that for controlled, precompiled modules, WebAssembly-to-C offers a viable near-no-runtime option and highlights memory safety tools and guard pages in wasm2c.