WebAssembly Unleashed

WebAssembly Unleashed goes hands-on with a topic that shows up every time polished architectures collide with real production: programmability. Coming to you from F5's AppWorld 2026, hosts Joel Moses and Oscar Spencer are joined by WorldTech IT's Austin Geraci and Josh Brooks to talk about what actually happens when customers need traffic behavior that “shouldn’t exist,” but still has to work reliably at scale.The conversation moves from the reality of messy APIs and legacy constraints to the practical value of a programmable data plane. Austin and Josh share examples ranging from deterministic routing based on fields buried inside JSON payloads to deeply unglamorous but essential protocol surgery, including binary-level LDAP manipulation and SAML/OAuth edge cases that break whenever an upstream system refuses to behave. The common thread is clear: when the app team can’t change the app, the network and security layers become the integration surface.They also dig into why language choice still matters, even in the age of AI-assisted coding. Tooling ecosystems, native support for things like JSON parsing, and access to third-party libraries can turn “weeks of custom glue” into something maintainable. That’s where WebAssembly enters the picture: portable components and familiar languages that can run close to the traffic without forcing teams into legacy scripting or vendor-specific dialects.If you’re building AI-enabled applications, modernizing older systems, or trying to keep pace with constantly changing APIs, this episode makes the case that programmable middleware isn’t optional. It’s how you avoid waiting on feature releases, adapt safely, and turn a good fit into a production-ready one.

WebAssembly is usually framed as an application runtime story, but at AppWorld 2026 in Las Vegas, WebAssembly Unleashed shifts the spotlight to a more urgent frontier: data. As AI architectures get hungrier and more distributed, performance and security constraints are moving closer to the data store itself. In this episode, Joel Moses and co-host Oscar Spencer explore why WebAssembly components could become the connective tissue between data-intensive AI systems and the storage infrastructure that feeds them.They’re joined by Ugur Tigli, CTO of MinIO, to break down how modern AI workloads stress storage in very different ways, from throughput-heavy training and RAG pipelines to latency-sensitive inference. Ugur explains why keeping GPUs fed is now an economic necessity, how MinIO optimizes for saturating networks, and how techniques like erasure coding and SIMD offload help keep CPU and memory overhead low across diverse hardware targets.If you’re trying to understand where WebAssembly fits beyond the browser and beyond app logic, this episode offers a practical view of Wasm as a data-adjacent execution layer for real-world AI.

In this episode of WebAssembly Unleashed, hosts Joel Moses, Oscar Spencer, and Matt Yacobucci are joined by DevCentral Community Evangelist, Jason Rahm, to discuss programmability in the data plane. Through Jason's insights and use cases as both a former F5 customer and a current DevCentral maintainer they dig into the lessons learned from F5's iRules that Wasm should take note of.  Tune in to understand the programmability pain points for non-developers, the benefits of the community feedback loop, what Wasm can do to be usable for non-devs, and why Wasm portability reduces tool sprawl across platforms.Learn more about F5's iRules: https://clouddocs.f5.com/api/irules/

In this episode of WebAssembly Unleashed, hosts Joel Moses and Oscar Spencer kick things off with updates on the upcoming Wasm.IO conference in Barcelona and the latest buzz around WASI Preview 3 before diving into an in-depth conversation with guest Ralph Squillace on Microsoft's Wasm strategy. Ralph shares his journey in open source, from the early adoption of Linux at Microsoft to the rise of containers and the growing impact of WebAssembly. The discussion dives into Microsoft’s strategic role in shaping the future of WebAssembly, the unique advantages it brings to cloud-native development, and the challenges and opportunities facing the technology today.Whether you're curious about the evolution of containers, WebAssembly’s potential in big tech, or the balance between open standards and corporate innovation, this episode offers expert insights into WebAssembly’s transformative role in modern tech.

Join F5's Joel Moses, guest host Pat Hickey, and Microsoft Developer Advocate Yosh Wuyts as they dive deep into Microsoft's new tool, Wassette, designed to enhance the security and functionality of AI agents through WebAssembly. Learn about Wassette's sandboxing capabilities, its design components like Wasmtime, and its integration with various programming languages. Discover how Wassette leverages the component model to offer a safer alternative for running code and managing permissions. Tune in to find out how Wassette could impact your MCP server configurations and development processes.Read Yosh's blog Introducing Wassette: WebAssembly-based tools for AI agents:  https://opensource.microsoft.com/blog/2025/08/06/introducing-wassette-webassembly-based-tools-for-ai-agents

Join hosts Joel Moses, Oscar Spencer, and Matt Yacobucci, along with special guest Pat Hickey, for part two of their in-depth discussion on the latest WebAssembly proposals and advancements. This episode dives into the phase three, phase two, and phase one proposals in development, covering critical topics such as ESM integration, wide arithmetic, stack switching, and the Wasm component model. The team debates the significance of these features, their implementation stages, and their potential impact on WebAssembly's future. Watch now for the latest updates and insights from the world of WebAssembly!Dive into the WebAssembly Proposals https://github.com/WebAssembly/proposals 

Get ready to unleash the raw truth about WebAssembly! In this episode of WebAssembly Unleashed, hosts Joel Moses, Oscar Spencer, and Matt Yacobucci are joined by guest Pat Hickey for a no-holds-barred deep dive into the latest proposals and advancements shaking up the WebAssembly space. From phase five proposals like tail calls and extended constant expressions to the thorny complexities of garbage collection, multiple memories, and relaxed SIMD—the team doesn’t mince words as they dissect what works, what doesn’t, and what might blow up next. They even take aim at JavaScript integrations, content security policies, and the messy evolution of threading in Wasm. If you're looking for unfiltered, expert takes on what's promising, what's polarizing, and what's downright contentious in the world of WebAssembly, this is an episode you cannot miss. Buckle up!Dive into the WebAssembly Proposals https://github.com/WebAssembly/proposalsFor more from F5's Office of the CTO visit the following sites: Blogs -  https://www.f5.com/company/octoReports -  https://www.f5.com/services/resources...

Join hosts Joel Moses and Oscar Spencer as they dig into recent developments in the world of WebAssembly, starting with a look at Microsoft's Wassette, an initiative utilizing Wasm to enhance AI agent security. Then hear from special guests Khagan (Khan) Karimov and Arjun Ramesh, two doctoral candidates passionate about innovative WebAssembly research. Hear about Khan's focus on fuzzing Wasm implementations to root out security vulnerabilities, while Arjun explores time travel debugging to revolutionize debugging in embedded systems. Tune in for an insightful episode that highlights the exciting developments in the WebAssembly space!For more from F5's Office of the CTO visit the following sites: Blogs -  https://www.f5.com/company/octoReports -  https://www.f5.com/services/resources/reports

Join Joel Moses, Matthew Yacobucci, and guest-host Chris Fallin as they dive into the maturation of WebAssembly technologies and their implementation. Special guest Oliver Medhurst, a former Mozilla engineer, joins the conversation to talk about his project, Porffor, a unique compiler kit for JavaScript that allows ahead-of-time compilation to WebAssembly. The discussion covers the challenges and benefits of ahead-of-time compilation, performance aspects, and the importance of WebAssembly in diverse environments. Oliver also shares insights into building a JavaScript engine from scratch and the community's reaction to his project. Tune in for an in-depth look at the future of WebAssembly and its intersection with JavaScript.Engage with Porffor:GitHub: https://github.com/CanadaHonk/porfforDiscord: https://discord.com/invite/wPV3WgDGwgRead more about the recent development from Zig: https://kristoff.it/blog/zig-new-async-io/

Join hosts Joel Moses, Oscar Spencer, and Matt Yacobucci as they dive deep into the world of formal verification with special guest Chris Fallin. In this episode of WebAssembly Unleashed, the team discusses the importance of formal verification in software development, particularly for WebAssembly. Chris, a co-author of the Cranelift compiler and Mozilla alum, explains the concept of formal verification, its significance, and how it can be applied to ensure software correctness and security. The conversation covers a range of topics including type safety, the use of SMT solvers, the challenges in formally verifying compilers, and the potential role of AI in generating formally verified code. Don't miss this insightful discussion if you're keen to learn about cutting-edge techniques to make software more reliable and secure.

Joins hosts Joel Moses and Oscar Spencer as they delve into the world of WebAssembly with special guest Andreas Rossberg, co-designer of the WebAssembly specification. Andreas shares insights on SpecTec, a domain-specific language designed to streamline and verify the WebAssembly specification. The discussion covers the evolution of SpecTec, its impact on WebAssembly proposals, and future possibilities for its application. Additionally, Andreas discusses his background in functional programming, challenges in compiler development, and the surprising uses of WebAssembly in the tech ecosystem. Whether you're a novice or a seasoned developer, this episode offers a comprehensive look into the future of WebAssembly and its growing influence in technology.

Join Joel Moses, Oscar Spencer, and Matt Yacobucci as they discuss the latest news and recent developments in WebAssembly, such as Zig 0.140 and projects like running Linux inside a PDF file. This episode features special guest Nick Fitzgerald, a notable contributor to WasmTime and CraneLift, who explains the concept of garbage collection in programming. The discussion covers  garbage collection in the context of WebAssembly, diving into algorithms, their implications, and challenges in implementation. They also touch upon the future of WebAssembly in embedded systems and the broader applications of these technologies in various programming languages like Java and Python. Don't miss this engaging and informative episode! A Unified Theory of Garbage Collection paper: https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse590p/05au/p50-bacon.pdf

Join hosts Joel Moses, Oscar Spencer, and Matthew Yacobucci as they discuss recent WebAssembly advancements, such as data science in browsers with WebR, LibreOffice now running as ZetaOffice, and a unique case study from Dagger.IO on replacing a React front end with Go and WebAssembly. The team is joined by special guest, journalist and analyst Bruce Gain, who shares his insights on the impact of WebAssembly in gaming and its applications in various industries. Topics include performance benchmarking, the evolution of WebAssembly, and its potential tipping points for mainstream media attention. Tune in for an engaging conversation about the future of WebAssembly and its broader implications.

Join hosts Joel Moses, Oscar Spencer, and Matthew Yacobucci as they take a retrospective look at WebAssembly's exciting developments from 2024 and share their insightful predictions for 2025. This special episode covers groundbreaking advancements in WebAssembly core technology, the WASI ecosystem, and highlights notable progress from previous guests like Bailey Hayes, Pat Hickey, Chris Dickinson, and more. Discover the evolving trends in WebAssembly, its increasing adoption in production, and what the future holds for this transformative technology. Don't miss our rundown of core WebAssembly updates, the rise of server-side applications, and expert commentary on what's next for WASI and WebAssembly in AI and security workloads. Unleash the power and promise of WebAssembly with us!

In this episode of WebAssembly Unleashed, hosts Joel Moses, Oscar Spencer, and Matt Yacobucci discuss recent developments in the world of WebAssembly, including government involvement and new standards. They are joined by special guest Till Schneidereit, Principal Engineer at Fermyon and Co-Founder of the Bytecode Alliance, who shares insights on the creation and mission of Bytecode Alliance and discusses the importance of cross-industry collaboration in the development of WebAssembly. Till also offers valuable governance advice and reflects on the broad impact of their work.NIST IR 8505: https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/ir/8505/final

Welcome to WebAssembly Unleashed with hosts Joel Moses, Oscar Spencer, and Matt Yacobucci. Join us as we dive into the latest happenings in the Wasm community. Fresh from WasmCon, the team delves into the evolving WebAssembly standards, including the upcoming WASI Preview 3 featuring async and streams. Special guest Alessandro Pignotti, CTO of Leaning Technologies, shares his journey in reviving Adobe Flash content with LightSpark and introduces WebVM, a groundbreaking project to run legacy applications in the browser. Discover how WebAssembly is preserving early web content and the immense potential it holds for both client-side and enterprise applications. Tune in for an engaging discussion on the past, present, and future with WebAssembly!

Welcome to WebAssembly Unleashed with hosts Joel Moses, Oscar Spencer, and Matt Yacobucci. Join us to discover who’s recently experienced impressive performance improvements using WebAssembly, how maple whiskey is related to Wasm runtimes, and what is the process of innovation.  This month our special guest, Matt Butcher, CEO of Fermyon, shares his incredible journey through the tech industry, his insights on WebAssembly's potential to revolutionize cloud computing, and the innovative work Fermyon is doing with Spin. Explore the evolution from startup to large-scale enterprise and gain valuable perspectives on community building and technological advancements.Firefox's WebAssembly Performance Boost: https://www.howtogeek.com/firefox-75x-faster-running-webassembly/

Join hosts Joel Moses, Oscar Spencer, and Matthew Yacobucci in an informative and engaging podcast episode, diving into the world of WebAssembly (Wasm). Discover the origins and evolution of Wasm from its early days with Google's Native Client and Mozilla's ASM.js to its current role in transforming web and server-side computing. Learn about the challenges and breakthroughs driving Wasm forward along with common misconceptions and security concerns as it’s integrated into the daily technologies we use. Whether you're a seasoned developer or new to the space, this episode provides insights into the exciting future of WebAssembly and its impact on modern software development.

In this episode our hosts are joined by Shopify’s Saúl Cabrera to talk about his team’s experience using and deploying WebAssembly. Listen in to learn which Wasm proposals are progressing, why Shopify uses Wasm, what led them to using it in the server side space so early on, how their experience has been, and if they were restarting their work today whether or not they’d still choose WebAssembly.

In this episode our hosts are joined by Fermyon’s Joel Dice to dive deeper into ISYSWASFA, async, and WebAssembly. Listen in to learn about the new Wasi release cadence, find out how ISYSWASFA began, what’s in development now, and explore what’s in store for the developer experience with async.

In this episode our hosts are joined by Fastly’s Luke Wagner to discuss WebAssembly, async, and streams. Listen in to learn about the history and evolution of ASMJS, find out if sync and async functions will split WebAssembly, get a rundown on the concept of backpressure, and hear discussion regarding Joel Dice’s project ISYSWASFA (who you might get to hear from soon, so subscribe for future episodes 😉 ).

In this episode our hosts dive into what’s going on in the WebAssembly community following Wasm.IO and KubeCon before they are joined by Tim Hinrichs and Torin Sandall of Styra to discuss Open Policy Agent (OPA) and WebAssembly. Listen in to find out updates regarding the WebAssembly registry, get a rundown on Open Policy Agent and what led it to Wasm, the WebAssembly integration challenges OPA’s faced, interesting applications of OPA and Wasm, and so much more!**SPECIAL NOTE: Since this podcast recording, Linux Foundation has announced that WasmCon is being moved to November.

In this episode our hosts dive into what’s going on in the Wasm community and are then joined by Chris Dickinson of Dylibso to discuss WebAssembly and observability. Listen in to find out if WebAssembly has reached its Docker moment, hear about Wasm’s growth from hype to functionality, learn about the component model streams issue, and so much more!Dig into the Wasm.IO session recordings we mentioned:Filling a Registry-Shaped Hole in the Wasm Component Ecosystem by Daniel Macovei / Oscar Spencer - https://youtu.be/2_-10mRN30s?si=KVh58rZfqh5qHQY4  A stream of consciousness on the future of async in the Component Model by Luke Wagner - https://youtu.be/y3x4-nQeXxc?si=txfQj1Po9huqQfEt

In this special episode two of our hosts were able to sit down with F5’s Gilad Bracha to discuss what WebAssembly can learn based on Bracha’s experience with JAVA. Listen in to find out whether or not Wasm can deliver on “write once, run anywhere”, what shadows may be on the horizon, what JAVA did right that Wasm can learn from, and so much more!

In this special episode two of our hosts were able to sit down with F5 NGINX’s Dave McAllister to dive into how Open Source and Standards apply to WebAssembly. Listen in to learn about the benefits of open source on Wasm, why building to the common denominator is important, what WebAssembly is doing right when it comes to driving open standards, what Wasm needs to watch out for, Dave’s thoughts on the speed of standard progression, and so much more!

In this episode our hosts are joined by Bailey Hayes, CTO of Cosmonic, and Pat Hickey, Principal Engineer at Fastly, to discuss WASI—WebAssembly System (or Standard depending on who you ask) Interface. Listen in to learn more about why WASI is important, what all the “previews” are, whether or not the component model is done, plus so much more!

In this episode our three hosts are joined by Daniel (Danny) Macovei, co-founder at JAF Labs to discuss registry and package distribution in both a federated and non-opinionated way while ensuring safety and security. Find out what’s unique about Wasm for packet management, learn the difference between locked and bundled components, hear what measures are being taken for Warg security, and tune into some breaking news, plus so much more!

Join F5’s Distinguished Engineer, Joel Moses, Principal Software Engineer, Oscar Spencer, and Architect, Matthew Yacobucci for the inaugural episode of WebAssembly Unleashed—a podcast for architects, practitioners, technologists, and general Wasm enthusiasts. In this episode our three hosts delve into the recently released State of Web Assembly survey results. Find out what’s notable in the community, get perspective on what proposals, changes, and updates mean to the Wasm standard, and so much more.