5 ms·

Endive: A JVM native WebAssembly runtime

110 points by theanonymousone 5mo ago

gavinray 5mo ago
See also: https://www.graalvm.org/webassembly/docs/ https://www.graalvm.org/webassembly/docs/
- jbaiter 5mo ago
  Yeah, this was the first thing that came to mind, how does this compare to the Truffle WASM implementation. The Graal Polyglot API is pretty incredible, we've been using it for a JavaScript/Python plugin system in a JVM app, and it's been amazing.
  - bhelx 5mo ago
    Agree about Graal being really good. there are some different use cases for embedding wasm in an application. chicory / endive is not just for embedding another language. the main use case was always secure plugin-systems. but there are other use cases. also it's not controlled by Oracle and works well outside of their ecosystem, which i think some people value. this question came up a few times and were addressed in talks and blog articles: https://github.com/dylibso/chicory#on-the-press https://github.com/dylibso/chicory#on-the-press
pjmlp 5mo ago
I guess we can come full circle and eventualy port it to Android Java.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- andreaTP 5mo ago
  Android is supported!
MattCruikshank 5mo ago
If you haven't seen The Birth & Death of JavaScript, it's well worth a watch: https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of-javascript https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...
phickey 5mo ago
Lots of context for this project on the Bytecode Alliance blog: https://bytecodealliance.org/articles/endive-and-the-next-chapter-of-webassembly-on-the-jvm https://bytecodealliance.org/articles/endive-and-the-next-ch...
- pjmlp 5mo ago
  Ah, looks like they will be packaging a Rust runtime on top, not as interesting as I thought.
  - bhelx 5mo ago
    the "redline" compiler is cranelift which is written in rust, but i think it's being compiled to Wasm first then JVM bytecode so it still works zero dependency. not sure if that will continue to be the case.
zcw100 5mo ago
Is this being handed over to the Bytecode Alliance or is this a hard fork and will diverge from Chicory? It isn't clear from the announcement but I suspect the former.
apignotti 5mo ago
Shameless plug: we solved the opposite problem, running any Java application in the browser via WebAssembly: https://labs.leaningtech.com/blog/cheerpj-4.3 https://labs.leaningtech.com/blog/cheerpj-4.3 And yes, it does run Minecraft as well :-) https://browsercraft.cheerpj.com/ https://browsercraft.cheerpj.com/
- panick21_ 5mo ago
  Mmhh should work for clojure as well then. I should try this.
  - apignotti 5mo ago
    I can confirm non-Java languages work as expected. I've personally tried Kotlin, and IIRC some user from the community reported Clojure to be working as well. Consider joining our Discord for help: https://discord.leaningtech.com https://discord.leaningtech.com
- ____tom____ 5mo ago
  But can it run Endive?
  - ____tom____ 5mo ago
    I wonder what the performance loss is for each level?
  - apignotti 5mo ago
    Not something I tried myself, but conceptually if it's Java it should work. CheerpJ Just-In-Time compiles Java bytecode at runtime, so it makes no difference if the classes come from JAR files or are dynamically generated.
    - jon_richards 5mo ago
      How close are we to the birth and death of yavascript? https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of-javascript https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...
spankalee 5mo ago
It will be really great if this becomes a second popular runtime with both GC and WASI component model support. Wasmtime being the only runtime with that combo is a bit concerning. Node supporting the component model will help a lot too.
- asibahi 5mo ago
  The component model is still in phase 1 (standardization is phase 5) and the Bytecode Alliance are its sponsors and the ones pushing it into the ecosystem with wasmtime.
  - spankalee 5mo ago
    I don't think you're fully saying what you want to here. Are you saying this is bad? The point of a component model is interoperability, so the more runtimes that support it the better.
    - subarctic 5mo ago
      I think just pointing out that it's still in stage 1 so it makes sense that it's not supported in every runtime yet
    - asibahi 5mo ago
      I am saying as far as anyone other that the Bytecode Alliance is concerned it is custom API for Bytecode Alliance projects.
- mendyberger 5mo ago
  Component model can run in any js runtime with jco
syrusakbary 5mo ago
This is a fork of Chicory, a bit more context of the relationship between the projects can be found here: https://github.com/dylibso/chicory/issues/1296 https://github.com/dylibso/chicory/issues/1296
- martypitt 5mo ago
  Any background / context around what the Chicory author means in this comment? > We'll consider merging in changes that make sense from Endive, but under the stewardship of the [Byte Code Alliance] I have very little faith in its future. My words mean nothing though having all but completely lost interest and use for WebAssembly. What's the background / history of Byte Code Alliance?
  - pjmlp 5mo ago
    Not everyone is on board with CORBA but with WebAssembly, which is basically what the reboot of the component model is, so probably that. The AssemblyScript folks have a similar opinion.
    - throawayonthe 5mo ago
      [dead]
    - bhelx 5mo ago
      yeah that is roughly the concern, many runtimes didn't want to continue on past wasip1, mostly because of the component model.
  - andreaTP 5mo ago
    The comment is from the Dylibso CEO.
hectaman 5mo ago
On the CNCF wasmCloud Community call this week we played with this: - a demonstration of Endive - implemented CNCF wasmCloud host - Integrated into Vert.x as an example And discussed the roadmap. Blogpost and video here: https://blog.cosmonic.com/engineering/2026-05-26-diving-into-endive/ https://blog.cosmonic.com/engineering/2026-05-26-diving-into...
outadoc 5mo ago
Finally we can run Kotlin/WASM on desktop! /s
exabrial 5mo ago
Projects like this would be significantly funner and easier to make in Jdk25+(well technically 24+) because of the new Java classfile/bytecode API. It looks like Endive uses OW2 ASM, probably because this supports back to Jdk11. The new jdk API has a minimum target of Jdk17. OW2 ASM is significantly harder to use IMHO though. What got me into this is I just finished a major release of Petrify (https://github.com/exabrial/petrify https://github.com/exabrial/petrify) that compiles ML Models to JVM Bytecode. It requires Jdk25 to do the compilation, but the compiled models can run on Jdk17+. I'm looking for more side projects to use the classfile API on.
- jbaiter 5mo ago
  You might want to take a look at https://www.graalvm.org/webassembly https://www.graalvm.org/webassembly. Runs on JDK25 and has very good guest<->host interop.
  - hectaman 5mo ago
    There is a comparison between the two here: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7465778578169741313?commentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Acomment%3A%28activity%3A7465778578169741313%2C7465903222440923136%29&dashCommentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_comment%3A%287465903222440923136%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7465778578169741313%29 https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7465778...
- xxs 5mo ago
  bytecode manipulation has been a thing ever since late 90s and early 2000s (e.g. BCEL, Jan, 2001), along with byte code decompilation. Generally one must understand how bytecode signatures, all flavors of invoke, and constant pool work. After that using visor pattern or 'functional' alike stuff makes no difference whatsoever. I have used (still using) bytecode manipulation along with custom classloaders as part of my job (albeit not on daily basis any longer). Personally, I don't consider objectweb asm hard to use in any way. and java's class file won't be funnier - perhaps it was the very project I'd not pick bcel, though.
- bhelx 5mo ago
tegmentum 5mo ago
Another Shameless plug: A common interface for webassembly engines, including Chicory, in Java https://github.com/tegmentum/webassembly4j https://github.com/tegmentum/webassembly4j
- tegmentum 5mo ago
  I wrote this for a number of reasons but oddly enough Java probably has the most options as far as runtimes go but the support is pretty fractured. The underlying runtime adapters add support for wasmtime and wamr as well. There are two JNI implementations for wasmtime but they are badly out of date and haven't been updated in years. There are a number of reasons you might want to use one runtime over another and this was supposed to unify them under a single interface and make swapping them out easy. It also allows you to easily compare the tradeoffs of various engines.
pseudopolous 5mo ago
[dead]
GoblinSlayer 5mo ago
Why not resurrect applets? We had this webasm thing 30 years ago.
- Defletter 5mo ago
  The two main points are that wasm is entirely sandboxed and that it's designed to be streamed, and to start up very quickly. The official Java youtube channel coincidentally posted this two days ago - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy0KyGLrbJo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy0KyGLrbJo - which includes some interesting details.
krautsauer 5mo ago
I was trying to write something like this in rust at some point, just for the joke that you can compile that rust to wasm, and then it can compile itself to JVM assembly. The complexity of it turned out to be quite a bit too high for a joke only.

gavinray 5mo ago

See also: https://www.graalvm.org/webassembly/docs/ https://www.graalvm.org/webassembly/docs/

jbaiter 5mo ago
Yeah, this was the first thing that came to mind, how does this compare to the Truffle WASM implementation. The Graal Polyglot API is pretty incredible, we've been using it for a JavaScript/Python plugin system in a JVM app, and it's been amazing.
- bhelx 5mo ago
  Agree about Graal being really good. there are some different use cases for embedding wasm in an application. chicory / endive is not just for embedding another language. the main use case was always secure plugin-systems. but there are other use cases. also it's not controlled by Oracle and works well outside of their ecosystem, which i think some people value. this question came up a few times and were addressed in talks and blog articles: https://github.com/dylibso/chicory#on-the-press https://github.com/dylibso/chicory#on-the-press

pjmlp 5mo ago

I guess we can come full circle and eventualy port it to Android Java.

deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
andreaTP 5mo ago
Android is supported!

MattCruikshank 5mo ago

If you haven't seen The Birth & Death of JavaScript, it's well worth a watch: https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of-javascript https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...

phickey 5mo ago

Lots of context for this project on the Bytecode Alliance blog: https://bytecodealliance.org/articles/endive-and-the-next-chapter-of-webassembly-on-the-jvm https://bytecodealliance.org/articles/endive-and-the-next-ch...

pjmlp 5mo ago
Ah, looks like they will be packaging a Rust runtime on top, not as interesting as I thought.
- bhelx 5mo ago
  the "redline" compiler is cranelift which is written in rust, but i think it's being compiled to Wasm first then JVM bytecode so it still works zero dependency. not sure if that will continue to be the case.

zcw100 5mo ago

Is this being handed over to the Bytecode Alliance or is this a hard fork and will diverge from Chicory? It isn't clear from the announcement but I suspect the former.

apignotti 5mo ago

Shameless plug: we solved the opposite problem, running any Java application in the browser via WebAssembly: https://labs.leaningtech.com/blog/cheerpj-4.3 https://labs.leaningtech.com/blog/cheerpj-4.3 And yes, it does run Minecraft as well :-) https://browsercraft.cheerpj.com/ https://browsercraft.cheerpj.com/

panick21_ 5mo ago
Mmhh should work for clojure as well then. I should try this.
- apignotti 5mo ago
  I can confirm non-Java languages work as expected. I've personally tried Kotlin, and IIRC some user from the community reported Clojure to be working as well. Consider joining our Discord for help: https://discord.leaningtech.com https://discord.leaningtech.com
____tom____ 5mo ago
But can it run Endive?
- ____tom____ 5mo ago
  I wonder what the performance loss is for each level?
- apignotti 5mo ago
  Not something I tried myself, but conceptually if it's Java it should work. CheerpJ Just-In-Time compiles Java bytecode at runtime, so it makes no difference if the classes come from JAR files or are dynamically generated.
  - jon_richards 5mo ago
    How close are we to the birth and death of yavascript? https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of-javascript https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...

spankalee 5mo ago

It will be really great if this becomes a second popular runtime with both GC and WASI component model support. Wasmtime being the only runtime with that combo is a bit concerning. Node supporting the component model will help a lot too.

asibahi 5mo ago
The component model is still in phase 1 (standardization is phase 5) and the Bytecode Alliance are its sponsors and the ones pushing it into the ecosystem with wasmtime.
- spankalee 5mo ago
  I don't think you're fully saying what you want to here. Are you saying this is bad? The point of a component model is interoperability, so the more runtimes that support it the better.
  - subarctic 5mo ago
    I think just pointing out that it's still in stage 1 so it makes sense that it's not supported in every runtime yet
  - asibahi 5mo ago
    I am saying as far as anyone other that the Bytecode Alliance is concerned it is custom API for Bytecode Alliance projects.
mendyberger 5mo ago
Component model can run in any js runtime with jco

syrusakbary 5mo ago

This is a fork of Chicory, a bit more context of the relationship between the projects can be found here: https://github.com/dylibso/chicory/issues/1296 https://github.com/dylibso/chicory/issues/1296

martypitt 5mo ago
Any background / context around what the Chicory author means in this comment? > We'll consider merging in changes that make sense from Endive, but under the stewardship of the [Byte Code Alliance] I have very little faith in its future. My words mean nothing though having all but completely lost interest and use for WebAssembly. What's the background / history of Byte Code Alliance?
- pjmlp 5mo ago
  Not everyone is on board with CORBA but with WebAssembly, which is basically what the reboot of the component model is, so probably that. The AssemblyScript folks have a similar opinion.
  - throawayonthe 5mo ago
    [dead]
  - bhelx 5mo ago
    yeah that is roughly the concern, many runtimes didn't want to continue on past wasip1, mostly because of the component model.
- andreaTP 5mo ago
  The comment is from the Dylibso CEO.

hectaman 5mo ago

On the CNCF wasmCloud Community call this week we played with this: - a demonstration of Endive - implemented CNCF wasmCloud host - Integrated into Vert.x as an example And discussed the roadmap. Blogpost and video here: https://blog.cosmonic.com/engineering/2026-05-26-diving-into-endive/ https://blog.cosmonic.com/engineering/2026-05-26-diving-into...

outadoc 5mo ago

Finally we can run Kotlin/WASM on desktop! /s

exabrial 5mo ago

Projects like this would be significantly funner and easier to make in Jdk25+(well technically 24+) because of the new Java classfile/bytecode API. It looks like Endive uses OW2 ASM, probably because this supports back to Jdk11. The new jdk API has a minimum target of Jdk17. OW2 ASM is significantly harder to use IMHO though. What got me into this is I just finished a major release of Petrify (https://github.com/exabrial/petrify https://github.com/exabrial/petrify) that compiles ML Models to JVM Bytecode. It requires Jdk25 to do the compilation, but the compiled models can run on Jdk17+. I'm looking for more side projects to use the classfile API on.

jbaiter 5mo ago
You might want to take a look at https://www.graalvm.org/webassembly https://www.graalvm.org/webassembly. Runs on JDK25 and has very good guest<->host interop.
- hectaman 5mo ago
  There is a comparison between the two here: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7465778578169741313?commentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Acomment%3A%28activity%3A7465778578169741313%2C7465903222440923136%29&dashCommentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_comment%3A%287465903222440923136%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7465778578169741313%29 https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7465778...
xxs 5mo ago
bytecode manipulation has been a thing ever since late 90s and early 2000s (e.g. BCEL, Jan, 2001), along with byte code decompilation. Generally one must understand how bytecode signatures, all flavors of invoke, and constant pool work. After that using visor pattern or 'functional' alike stuff makes no difference whatsoever. I have used (still using) bytecode manipulation along with custom classloaders as part of my job (albeit not on daily basis any longer). Personally, I don't consider objectweb asm hard to use in any way. and java's class file won't be funnier - perhaps it was the very project I'd not pick bcel, though.
bhelx 5mo ago

tegmentum 5mo ago

Another Shameless plug: A common interface for webassembly engines, including Chicory, in Java https://github.com/tegmentum/webassembly4j https://github.com/tegmentum/webassembly4j

tegmentum 5mo ago
I wrote this for a number of reasons but oddly enough Java probably has the most options as far as runtimes go but the support is pretty fractured. The underlying runtime adapters add support for wasmtime and wamr as well. There are two JNI implementations for wasmtime but they are badly out of date and haven't been updated in years. There are a number of reasons you might want to use one runtime over another and this was supposed to unify them under a single interface and make swapping them out easy. It also allows you to easily compare the tradeoffs of various engines.

pseudopolous 5mo ago

[dead]

GoblinSlayer 5mo ago

Why not resurrect applets? We had this webasm thing 30 years ago.

Defletter 5mo ago
The two main points are that wasm is entirely sandboxed and that it's designed to be streamed, and to start up very quickly. The official Java youtube channel coincidentally posted this two days ago - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy0KyGLrbJo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy0KyGLrbJo - which includes some interesting details.

krautsauer 5mo ago

I was trying to write something like this in rust at some point, just for the joke that you can compile that rust to wasm, and then it can compile itself to JVM assembly. The complexity of it turned out to be quite a bit too high for a joke only.