At RIoT Secure, we are constantly working to make IoT more secure, scalable, and future-ready.
When we first idealized BRAWL back in 2017, WebAssembly was still new on the scene and largely confined to the browser world. At that time, building a proprietary virtual machine made sense: it gave us complete control over performance, instruction design, and IoT-specific features. But technology moves fast. Over the past few years, WASM has matured into a robust, standardized, and widely adopted runtime - one that is perfectly aligned with the needs of IoT.
That is why we have made the decision to transition BRAWL from a custom opcode environment to one based on WebAssembly (WASM) and WebAssembly System Interface (WASI) extensions.
Why WebAssembly as a Foundation
WASM has already proven itself as a universal runtime that works across browsers, servers, and cloud environments. Its design is both compact and secure, making it a natural fit for IoT. By moving BRAWL onto the WASM core, we not only inherit a well-documented and widely supported specification, but we also tap into a thriving ecosystem of compilers, developer tools, and community innovation.
The benefit of adopting WASM is not only about compatibility, but about future-proofing. With WASM, the same module can be deployed across diverse hardware platforms without modification. This eliminates the need for fragmented firmware builds, instead delivering a single runtime environment that is consistent and predictable. At the same time, WASM’s sandboxed execution model enforces strict isolation between modules and host systems - a perfect match for IoT, where devices often operate in untrusted environments.
And WASM is still evolving. With the WASI extensions, the standard is expanding to include device interfaces, cryptographic modules, and edge-native system calls. By aligning BRAWL with WASM and WASI, we are positioning IoT to ride the wave of innovation already reshaping the web and cloud.
BRAWL meets WASM and WASI
The benefits we now highlight with WASM and WASI are not new to us - they were already at the heart of BRAWL. From the beginning, BRAWL was designed to enable portable firmware, strict sandboxing, and consistent execution across diverse IoT hardware. What WASM brings is standardization - by aligning BRAWL with WASM with WASI extensions, we inherit a mature and widely supported ecosystem: tools, compilers, and developer familiarity that extend far beyond IoT.
While WASM provides a powerful and standardized foundation, BRAWL is specifically engineers for IoT. Most IoT devices do not have the luxury of abundant memory or compute power. That’s why BRAWL delivers an extremely small footprint and minimal memory requirements, while remaining fully compliant with the WASM specification. It is lightweight enough for microcontrollers, yet fully capable of running standard WASM modules with WASI extensions.
This gives developers the best of both worlds: the vast ecosystem of WASM compilers and tooling combined with a runtime that runs on devices with just a few kilobytes of RAM and flash. BRAWL bridges the gap between WASM’s universal portability and the harsh realities of IoT.
Looking Ahead - Standards Alignment
Just as Java and .NET standardized server and desktop computing two decades ago, WASM is emerging as the universal runtime of the future. IoT must be part of that story - and with BRAWL, it is. We are not reinventing the wheel, instead, we are aligning IoT with an open standard that has already proven itself across industries. We believe BRAWL is uniquely positioned to redefine what’s possible in IoT. It delivers the smallest possible firmware size, integrates seamlessly with existing WASM workflows, and is ready to take advantage of the expanding WASI ecosystem.
This is more than evolution - it’s a bold step toward future-proofing IoT, and RIoT Secure is proud to lead the way.
