As software development increasingly demands portability, performance, and security across a wide range of platforms—from cloud servers to edge devices—WebAssembly (Wasm) has emerged as a compelling solution. In 2025, the maturation of the WebAssembly System Interface (WASI) marks a significant milestone in enabling universal application development that is both cross-platform and sandboxed by design. This paper investigates WASI’s modular system interface, its capability-based security model, and the practical implications of deploying applications across heterogeneous environments. Through architectural analysis, real-world use cases, and empirical benchmarks, we demonstrate that WASI offers a viable alternative to traditional containerization for many workloads. We further explore how WASI bridges the gap between performance, portability, and safety, paving the way for a new era of secure and efficient application development.
Keywords: DevOps, WASI, WebAssembly, application sandboxing, capability-based security, cloud-native, cross-platform development, edge computing, portable applications, secure execution environments, system interface, universal binaries
