What the 2021 WebAssembly Survey Reveals About Language Trends and Future Impact

This article shares the results of the 2021 WebAssembly survey, which collected responses from more than 250 participants in June 2021.

Rust is the most widely used and popular language for WebAssembly.

AssemblyScript ranks second.

WebAssembly is expected to have a significant impact on web, serverless, and containerized applications.

Improved debugging support is the most requested area of focus.

The survey data shows that Rust accounts for 26% of language usage, followed by C++ and AssemblyScript. Rust’s popularity stems from its strong community, lack of garbage collection, lightweight binaries, and excellent tooling.

We are ready to become the language of choice for wasm.

C++ is the second most used language, primarily via the Emscripten toolchain, and remains popular for game development.

Approximately 47% of respondents use WebAssembly frequently, while other languages each account for less than 2% of usage.

When asked which language they would like to use for WebAssembly development, Rust remains the top choice, AssemblyScript moves ahead of C++ to second place, and Blazor ranks third.

WebAssembly Applications

Most participants use WebAssembly for web application development, and many anticipate a strong future impact on web development, with serverless leading (56% high impact) and notable interest in blockchain, although many are unsure of its future role there.

WebAssembly Features and Needs

Originally released as a minimal viable product focused on C++ use cases, WebAssembly has added features such as mutable globals and multi-value returns. Respondents are most interested in thread support, including atomic memory operations and shared linear memory, as shown in the survey.

Other emerging standards include the WebAssembly System Interface (WASI) for non‑browser functionality and interface types for easier cross‑language module communication. Garbage collection support is currently low on the priority list, despite its importance for languages like C# and AssemblyScript.

Overall, the top priority identified by developers is better coding and debugging support, as current tools lack consistency and comprehensive source‑level debugging capabilities.

Demographics

Respondents reported varying skill levels in JavaScript, backend, and WebAssembly development. Most participants are relatively new to WebAssembly, with many having limited experience.

The survey received responses from 196 countries, the largest share coming from the United States (21.8%), followed by China and Germany (each 9.1%).

Edited by: Universal Da Xiong Source: 21CTO