Goran Štimac Server-side WebAssembly has concrete reasons to exist in 2026. WASI 0.3 (June 2026) made async native: async func, stream<T>, and future<T> are first-class, so async composes across component chains. WebAssembly 3.0 (September 2025) added 64-bit memory and garbage collection for non-browser use.
The platforms followed. Cloudflare Workers runs Rust, Go, and C compiled to Wasm (no threading; WASI experimental). Fastly Compute is Wasm-first. Akamai acquired Fermyon in December 2025, and Wasmtime 47 is the stable runtime.
Where is it useful? Edge functions, multi-tenant plugins, and portable services. Capability-based WASI grants a module only what the host allows; memory safety is enforced by the runtime — genuine isolation value. Not immunity: Wasmtime patched two critical sandbox escapes in April 2026. Patch your runtimes.
Wasm is not a Docker replacement, and WASI 0.1 still powers most production workloads. Start where boundaries are clear: sandboxed, portable, one function per guest.
Practical guidance: check which WASI preview your provider supports before you commit. Preview 1 is still the compatibility baseline for most toolchains, while the async types in preview 2 and WASI 0.3 only help if the platform exposes them end to end. The Component Model also makes polyglot composition practical — a Rust module can be called from a Go handler through a shared interface — which is exactly what plugin and multi-tenant workloads need.
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