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Cheerp 3.0: The most advanced C++ compiler for the Web, now
permissively licensed

March 14, 2023
Alessandro Pignotti
[Cheerp-3]

Today we are very proud to announce Cheerp 3.0, the latest major
release of our C++ compiler for the Web.

More than a year has passed since the previous release of Cheerp (
Cheerp 2.7), and this new version is packed with new features and
optimizations that, once more, move the state of the art of using C++
as a programming language for Web applications and games.

Most importantly, with this release we are making a significant
change to the licensing model of Cheerp. Starting from Cheerp 3.0,
all the compiler core components and libraries are now licensed
permissively under the Apache 2.0 / LLVM license. This marks a
radical departure from our previous GPLv2 / dual commercial licensing
model, allowing for Cheerp 3.0 to be used for any purpose, with no
restrictions.

Why are we changing the license of Cheerp?

Since its release in 2014 Cheerp has been licensed under a dual
licensing scheme: GPLv2 for non-commercial users, and a proprietary
license for anybody not willing to comply with GPLv2 terms.

For us at Leaning Technologies, this has always represented a less
than ideal,but necessary choice. As a bootstrapped company with no
external capital, we felt that dual licensing was the only way to
monetize the tool, even if that came at the expense of a wider
community adoption.

A lot has happened since 2014: we have grown significantly and
released multiple products (CheerpJ, CheerpX for Flash and WebVM). We
are in a very different place financially and in terms of maturity.
During this time, Cheerp remained the cornerstone of all our
technologies. Everything that we make at Leaning Technologies is
written in C++ and compiled with Cheerp, and it would not have been
possible otherwise.

Having reflected on what role we want to play in the WebAssembly
ecosystem, we realized that now is the right time to change gears,
and prioritize a wider adoption of this tool. By relicensing it to a
permissive liberal license we hope to remove any barrier to the
adoption of Cheerp, which can now be used by anybody with 'no strings
attached'.

What makes Cheerp unique?

Cheerp is a compiler designed to make C++ a first class language for
Web programming.

The purpose of Cheerp is not just to generate optimized WebAssembly
from C++. Rather, it is to provide a tool that allows C++ to be
seamlessly integrated with any external HTML5/JavaScript.

To achieve this, it has several unique features and optimizations:

* A state-of-the-art WebAssembly backend: This is expected by a
modern C++ compiler that can target the Web. Cheerp generates
extremely high quality WebAssembly code in one step, with no
post-processing required (e.g. Binaryen wasm-opt). Cheerp
supports post-MVP features of WebAssembly including tail calls,
SIMD and externrefs. All these features can be selectively
enabled using the -cheerp-wasm-enable= command line flag to make
sure you can target as many browsers as possible depending on
your requirements.
* A performant JavaScript backend: Cheerp is the only tool in the
market that can generate pure JavaScript code from C++. In
particular, it is possible to compile selected portions of code
to JavaScript by tagging specific functions or classes with the
[[cheerp::genericjs]] attribute. It is also possible to compile a
whole codebase to pure JavaScript, by using the -target cheerp
command line option. The JavaScript output of Cheerp is highly
optimized. We have studied in depth how engines such as V8 and
SpiderMonkey work internally to make sure the generated
JavaScript can be compiled as efficiently as possible.
* Transparent access to DOM APIs and JavaScript libraries: By
taking advantage of the JavaScript backend, Cheerp allows to
manipulate the DOM and invoke any JavaScript API directly in
C++. In Cheerp this is done by using the APIs declared in the
client namespace. The <cheerp/clientlib.h> header declares all
the standard DOM APIs at this time, but there is nothing magic
about it and you are free to add your own declarations to the
client namespace if you need to use experimental DOM APIs or any
third party JavaScript libraries. As a quick example of what is
possible with Cheerp, this is valid C++ code:

client::HTMLElement* newElem = client::document.createElement("div");

* The [[cheerp::jsexport]] attribute: With this feature it is
possible to use C++ functions and complete classes directly from
manually written JavaScript. The compiler will enforce a set of
rules on the exposed interfaces to guarantee that it's safe to do
so. We have written at length about this feature previously.
* Advanced optimizations to reduce code size: Cheerp heavily takes
advantage of whole program optimization techniques. We have
developed advanced optimization such as PreExecuter (convert
global C++ constructors to constants), PartialExecuter (remove
code that can be proven to never be run based on partial
knowledge of function parameters), and a sophisticated
devirtualizer. All of these contribute to a significant reduction
in code size.

How does Cheerp compare to Emscripten?

Both Cheerp and Emscripten are based on the industry standard LLVM/
Clang infrastructure, and, fundamentally, do the same thing:
compiling C++ code into something that can run in the browser.

At a high level, the main difference between the two tools is a
matter of philosophy. Emscripten has a strong focus towards
converting whole C++ applications to WebAssembly so they can run on
the browser. Conversely, Cheerp focuses on allowing existing C++ code
to be used as part of a new, Web-native user experience. This is what
almost all of our customers actually required for their use cases.

To achieve this, Cheerp provides a collection of features to allow
seamless interoperability between C++ and any external JavaScript/
DOM. In particular, the [[cheerp::jsexport]] tag signals that the
generated code is exposed with no overhead to external JavaScript.
This unique feature requires Cheerp to be able to generate a
combination of WebAssembly and JavaScript from a single C++ source,
while enforcing a set of rules on the exposed interfaces to ensure
their behavior is predictable and without surprises.

On the technical side, the main differences are about how
intermediate outputs are represented and how linking happens.
Emscripten uses by default WebAssembly as the object format, the
various files are then linked and optimized in post-processing by
wasm-opt (part of binaryen).

From the get go, we followed a different approach, motivated by the
desire to have an integrated tool for C++ on the Web. Cheerp directly
uses the LLVM bytecode format as the intermediate representation, for
both object files and libraries. This makes it possible to fully
embrace whole program optimization by taking advantage of all the
metadata available at the LLVM level. Cheerp will "internalize" all
definitions during LTO, allowing a wide range of standard and custom
optimizations to take place at the LLVM level. After this process,
high quality WebAssembly and JavaScript is generated without any need
for post-processing steps.

We routinely benchmark Cheerp against the Emscripten test suite. The
results reflect the aforementioned differences in approach. In terms
of output size, thanks to LLVM level whole program optimization and
our custom passes, Cheerp normally achieves better results across
the board, with an average 7% smaller build size.

Output size benchmarks, lower is better. Data available here.

[Cheerp-3]

The reduced output size does not have a negative impact on execution
performance, which is comparable with Emscripten across a wide range
of benchmarks and execution engines. As an example here we have the
execution times on the v8 engine, lower is better. Full dataset
available for v8, SpiderMonkey and JavaScriptCore.

[Cheerp-3]

In other words, Cheerp provides a unique degree of integration
between compiled C++ and external JavaScript, with a smaller output
footprint, without sacrificing any performance compared to
Emscripten.

The only significant missing feature in Cheerp 3.0 is support
WebAssembly atomics and multithreading, but we are currently working
on this feature and we expect this last gap to be filled over the
next few months with the release of Cheerp 3.1.

It should be noted that the use of multithreading in browsers
currently requires jumping through more than a few hoops to enable
SharedArrayBuffer (i.e. COEP/COOP/CORP headers for cross-origin
isolations). These hoops can become real limitations to load
third-party resources, which is not uncommon in Web applications.
This means that, in practice, it might be wise not to depend on
multithreading unless you really need the feature.

Give Cheerp a try!

Cheerp has been used to build a lot of amazing products, including
all of Leaning Technologies' tools (e.g. WebVM, a x86 virtual machine
running in the browser at high performance).

The question is, what will you build with Cheerp?

You can download Cheerp here. For Debian/Ubuntu, consider using our
PPA

If you are unsure where to start take a look at our Documentation and
Getting Started guide.

For further support make sure to join our Discord: https://
discord.leaningtech.com, where you will find Leaning Technologies
core developers, including myself. We are always happy to help!

We hope you will enjoy using Cheerp, see you soon!

[leaningtech-1]

Leaning Technologies provides WebAssembly solutions to organisations
that are looking to migrate or modernise their native applications
into browser-based Web applications.

[NTA-3-1]
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