Google Sheets was one of Google’s first products to utilize WasmGC on Chrome, marking a significant milestone in engineering cooperation. The move aimed to enhance performance and real-time feedback for Google apps. Despite the challenge of JavaScript’s limitations, the Sheets team successfully transitioned from Java to JavaScript, with a focus on precise results validation. However, JavaScript was found to be slower than Java due to its unique characteristics. The introduction of WasmGC addressed this issue by optimizing performance and allowing garbage collected languages like Java to run at near-native speed on the web. This innovative solution opens up new possibilities for high-performance web applications.
https://web.dev/case-studies/google-sheets-wasmgc