{"slug": "extism", "name": "Extism", "category": "dev-libs", "category_name": "Libraries and frameworks", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 7, "warners": 0, "score": 4.225, "rising": -1.31, "first": "2026-01-05", "latest": "2026-06-12", "why": "Check out https://extism.org, it is built for those kinds of use cases.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 5, "neutral": 2, "compare": 1, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "Check out https://extism.org, it is built for those kinds of use cases.", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "extism.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://extism.org", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Extism"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 776159536, "item_id": 48509971, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48509971", "by": "apitman", "date": "2026-06-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Overall I loved the dev experience.", "excerpt": "Technically WASI 0.1, but I used it (via Extism[0]) to implement a simple library[1] that's written in Rust, but lets you easily add login to backends in Rust, Go, and Node. Would be trivial to add other lanugages supported by Extism. Overall I loved the dev experience. It's sort of like writing a C library that can be dynamically linked in other languages, but with much better security and much easier distribution b", "context": "", "use_case": "WASM plugin library for login", "switched_from": "", "story": "WASI 0.3.0 Released"}, {"id": 775798192, "item_id": 48487387, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48487387", "by": "crabmusket", "date": "2026-06-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Check out https://extism.org, it is built for those kinds of use cases.", "excerpt": "Check out https://extism.org, it is built for those kinds of use cases. However I think WASI and components could enhance it.", "context": "", "use_case": "WASM plugin systems", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Road to the WASM Component Model 1.0"}, {"id": 762100545, "item_id": 47631284, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47631284", "by": "apitman", "date": "2026-04-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "check out Extism", "excerpt": "Wazero is awesome. For anyone wanting to embed in languages other than Go, check out Extism.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Go on Embedded Systems and WebAssembly"}, {"id": 755786593, "item_id": 47236662, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47236662", "by": "rapnie", "date": "2026-03-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Tauri plus Extism [1] would have been interesting", "excerpt": "Besides going full native, a Tauri [0] app might have been another good alternative given they already use Rust. There are pros and cons to that choice, of course, and perhaps Tauri was considered and not chosen. Tauri plus Extism [1] would have been interesting, enabling polyglot plugin development via wasm. [0] https://tauri.app/ [1] https://extism.org/", "context": "", "use_case": "WebAssembly plugin system", "switched_from": "", "story": "Claude is an Electron App because we've lost native"}, {"id": 743979360, "item_id": 46498710, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46498710", "by": "hiccuphippo", "date": "2026-01-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "directly use wasm and allow any language that compiles to it with something like https://extism.org/", "excerpt": "If the code is gonna be written by LLMs anyway skip the js, directly use wasm and allow any language that compiles to it with something like https://extism.org/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "JavaScript engines zoo \u2013 Compare every JavaScript engine"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["wasm plugin library for login", "plugin system for extensions", "wasm plugin systems", "wasm plugin host", "webassembly plugin system"], "compared": [{"slug": "wazero", "name": "wazero", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48504063", "title": "WASI 0.3.0 Released", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48448083", "title": "The Road to the WASM Component Model 1.0", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47961935", "title": "Show HN: Pollen \u2013 distributed WASM runtime, no control plane, single binary", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47629116", "title": "Go on Embedded Systems and WebAssembly", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47235430", "title": "Claude is an Electron App because we've lost native", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46874097", "title": "Deno Sandbox", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {"compare": 1}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 2, "neutral": 1}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 776159536, "item_id": 48509971, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48509971", "by": "apitman", "date": "2026-06-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Overall I loved the dev experience.", "excerpt": "Technically WASI 0.1, but I used it (via Extism[0]) to implement a simple library[1] that's written in Rust, but lets you easily add login to backends in Rust, Go, and Node. Would be trivial to add other lanugages supported by Extism. Overall I loved the dev experience. It's sort of like writing a C library that can be dynamically linked in other languages, but with much better security and much easier distribution b", "context": "", "use_case": "WASM plugin library for login", "switched_from": "", "story": "WASI 0.3.0 Released"}, {"id": 776083248, "item_id": 48505203, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48505203", "by": "utopiah", "date": "2026-06-12", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I tinkered with https://extism.org", "excerpt": "I tinkered with https://extism.org and basically the use case is that they suggest, namely you can extend software in another programming language but without having to setup a container or VMs on the client. They \"just\" run the code in the browser and it can be JavaScript, sure, but can also be Python, Go, whatever. It's quite specific though as I'm working on support programming in the browser. If you are not deep ", "context": "", "use_case": "Plugin system for extensions", "switched_from": "", "story": "WASI 0.3.0 Released"}, {"id": 775798192, "item_id": 48487387, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48487387", "by": "crabmusket", "date": "2026-06-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Check out https://extism.org, it is built for those kinds of use cases.", "excerpt": "Check out https://extism.org, it is built for those kinds of use cases. However I think WASI and components could enhance it.", "context": "", "use_case": "WASM plugin systems", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Road to the WASM Component Model 1.0"}, {"id": 767909313, "item_id": 47994332, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47994332", "by": "sambigeara", "date": "2026-05-03", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Wazero (via Extism) carries the load here.", "excerpt": "Ha, thanks! I'll ping you an email. > And what's the public API/stdlib/bindings inside the WASM workers? Wazero (via Extism) carries the load here. As it stands, the runtime lifts three basic host functions into guest code which enable the RPC-like behaviour, injection of caller-context and basic logging[1], which are in turn referenced in the guest code like in the example[2]. In the reverse direction, guest code ex", "context": "", "use_case": "WASM plugin host", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Pollen \u2013 distributed WASM runtime, no control plane, single binary"}, {"id": 762100545, "item_id": 47631284, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47631284", "by": "apitman", "date": "2026-04-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "check out Extism", "excerpt": "Wazero is awesome. For anyone wanting to embed in languages other than Go, check out Extism.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Go on Embedded Systems and WebAssembly"}, {"id": 755786593, "item_id": 47236662, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47236662", "by": "rapnie", "date": "2026-03-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Tauri plus Extism [1] would have been interesting", "excerpt": "Besides going full native, a Tauri [0] app might have been another good alternative given they already use Rust. There are pros and cons to that choice, of course, and perhaps Tauri was considered and not chosen. Tauri plus Extism [1] would have been interesting, enabling polyglot plugin development via wasm. [0] https://tauri.app/ [1] https://extism.org/", "context": "", "use_case": "WebAssembly plugin system", "switched_from": "", "story": "Claude is an Electron App because we've lost native"}, {"id": 750343312, "item_id": 46896457, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46896457", "by": "regisb", "date": "2026-02-04", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Is this Extism, but running as a service?", "excerpt": "Is this Extism, but running as a service? https://extism.org/ It seems to me that a key feature of Extism is host functions (which can be called from the sandbox). But maybe I'm not comparing apples to apples?", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Deno Sandbox"}, {"id": 743979360, "item_id": 46498710, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46498710", "by": "hiccuphippo", "date": "2026-01-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "directly use wasm and allow any language that compiles to it with something like https://extism.org/", "excerpt": "If the code is gonna be written by LLMs anyway skip the js, directly use wasm and allow any language that compiles to it with something like https://extism.org/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "JavaScript engines zoo \u2013 Compare every JavaScript engine"}]}