The End of JNI Pain: How WebAssembly Is Quietly Replacing Native Libraries in Java (#98)

WebAssembly is already running inside Java applications, but most developers just don't know it yet.
In this episode, Andrea Peruffo walks us through how WebAssembly is becoming the modern, safe alternative to JNI. Run Rust, C, and other native libraries directly on the JVM, without the crash risks, per-platform packaging headaches, or the observability blackhole that JNI creates.
From JRuby's Prism parser to SQLite and full Postgres running as pure Java bytecode, the use cases are real. And the project making it possible, Endive, under the Bytecode Alliance, is open and ready to explore.
Guest
Andrea Peruffo
• GitHub: github.com/andreaTP
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/andrea-peruffo-32269178
• Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/andreatp.bsky.social
Links
•
A New Generation of Java Libraries: Wasm Becomes the Implementation Detail (foojay.io/today/a-new-generation-of-java-libra…)

•
Chicory on GitHub (github.com/dylibso/chicory)

•
Endive on GitHub (github.com/bytecodealliance/endive)

•
Endive documentation (endive.run/docs)

•
Bytecode Alliance (bytecodealliance.org)

•
OpenJDK Project Detroit (openjdk.org/projects/detroit)
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction of topic and guests
00:56 What is WebAssembly?
03:35 Comparing the performance with JavaScript
05:45 JRuby already uses WebAssembly
09:04 JNI versus FFM API versus WebAssembly
13:58 Other Java-related tools that use WebAssembly
17:56 History of the Chicory and Endive projects to bring WebAssembly to Java
21:03 Projects of the Bytecode Alliance
22:02 The Endive project as the glue to bring WebAssembly tools to Java
23:30 Integration of the Redline compiler
28:59 Why this is the perfect solution to modernize existing Java applications
31:18 Is this approach performant?
32:24 What future changes in Java and the JVM will make this even better
35:04 How Endive can be used in AI development
37:28 What to expect in Endive
41:29 Conclusions