What is V8?

V8 is Google’s open source high-performance JavaScript and WebAssembly engine, written in C++. It is used in Chrome and in Node.js, among others. It implements ECMAScript and WebAssembly, and runs on Windows 7 or later, macOS 10.12+, and Linux systems that use x64, IA-32, ARM, or MIPS processors. V8 can run standalone, or can be embedded into any C++ application.

Latest posts and feature explainers

187. Maglev - V8’s Fastest Optimizing JIT 05 December 2023 JavaScript
188. A new way to bring garbage collected programming languages efficiently to WebAssembly 01 November 2023 WebAssembly
189. Control-flow Integrity in V8 09 October 2023 security
190. Speeding up V8 heap snapshots 27 July 2023 memory tools
191. WebAssembly tail calls 06 April 2023 WebAssembly
192. Introducing the WebAssembly JavaScript Promise Integration API 19 January 2023 WebAssembly
193. Pointer compression in Oilpan 28 November 2022 internals memory cppgc
194. RegExp v flag with set notation and properties of strings 27 June 2022 ECMAScript
195. Discontinuing release blog posts 17 June 2022 release
196. Retrofitting temporal memory safety on C++ 14 June 2022 internals memory security

More articles can be found in the blog archive and the features section.