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, macOS, and Linux systems that use x64, IA-32, or ARM processors. V8 can be embedded into any C++ application.

Latest posts and feature explainers

200. How we made JSON.stringify more than twice as fast 04 August 2025 internals
201. Speculative Optimizations for WebAssembly using Deopts and Inlining 24 June 2025 WebAssembly internals
202. JavaScript's New Superpower: Explicit Resource Management 09 May 2025 ECMAScript
203. Giving V8 a Heads-Up: Faster JavaScript Startup with Explicit Compile Hints 29 April 2025 JavaScript
204. Land ahoy: leaving the Sea of Nodes 25 March 2025 JavaScript internals
205. Turbocharging V8 with mutable heap numbers 25 February 2025 JavaScript benchmarks internals
206. Introducing the WebAssembly JavaScript Promise Integration API 01 July 2024 WebAssembly
207. WebAssembly JSPI has a new API 04 June 2024 WebAssembly
208. The V8 Sandbox 04 April 2024 security
209. Iterator helpers 27 March 2024 ECMAScript

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