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 into letting a very specific kind of user extend, it's probably overkill.

Even then it's a very VERY niche thing because it has to be simultaneously :

- someone who is opinionated about a programming language (either because they know too much, i.e. expert, or not enough, i.e beginner)

- is dedicated enough to want to try to build something on top of an existing system

- does not want to bother with solutions you mentioned

Extending my Rust binary with a marketplace of WASM-based extensions like VSCode

In-process sandboxed llm-generated code execution. Considerably lighter weight, faster to boot (assuming pre-compilation) than Docker or spinning up micro-VMs.

I'm using it for a secure, language agnostic workflow orchestrator. Components have very finely-grained and controller permissions and access to data. They don't even get clocks by default (to mitigate against Spectre-style attacks) and credentials and tainted data are sequestered.

The best usage example of WASI I know of is the Zig compiler: https://ziglang.org/news/goodbye-cpp/

Edge rural farm systems

extending software with a plugin system

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