Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Microsoft MakeCode Arcade VS WebVM

Compare Microsoft MakeCode Arcade VS WebVM and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

Microsoft MakeCode Arcade logo Microsoft MakeCode Arcade

Drag n drop code to make and play games online and on various hardware

WebVM logo WebVM

A server-less virtual environment running fully client-side in HTML5/WebAssembly, designed to be Linux ABI-compatible, supporting x86 binaries on any browser, powered by the CheerpX engine, with a Debian OS and developer tools for secure, sandboxed โ€ฆ
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Analysis of WebVM

Overall verdict

  • WebVM is an impressive and genuinely useful project that runs a full Linux environment entirely in the browser, making it a solid choice for lightweight experimentation, education, and demos without any installation.

Why this product is good

  • Runs a complete Debian-based Linux environment directly in the browser with no installation or server-side backend required
  • Powered by CheerpX virtualization technology, which compiles x86 binaries to WebAssembly for real execution client-side
  • Fully sandboxed and private since computation happens locally in your browser, so your data stays on your machine
  • Open source and free to use, making it accessible for learning and tinkering
  • Includes networking support via Tailscale integration for connecting to real network resources
  • Great for quick demos and showcasing what modern web technologies (WebAssembly) can achieve

Recommended for

  • Developers wanting to quickly try Linux commands or tools without setting up a VM
  • Educators and students learning Linux, shell scripting, or basic systems concepts
  • People who need a disposable, sandboxed environment for testing snippets or scripts
  • Enthusiasts curious about WebAssembly and in-browser virtualization capabilities
  • Users on locked-down machines who cannot install software but have browser access

Microsoft MakeCode Arcade videos

Microsoft MakeCode Arcade Overview

More videos:

  • Review - Beginners Review: Microsoft MakeCode Arcade || Lilithium

WebVM videos

No WebVM videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

Add video

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Microsoft MakeCode Arcade and WebVM)
Game Development
100 100%
0% 0
VPS
0 0%
100% 100
Kids Education
100 100%
0% 0
Web Hosting
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using Microsoft MakeCode Arcade and WebVM. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Social recommendations and mentions

WebVM might be a bit more popular than Microsoft MakeCode Arcade. We know about 7 links to it since March 2021 and only 6 links to Microsoft MakeCode Arcade. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Microsoft MakeCode Arcade mentions (6)

  • A Tiny Yellow Handheld Changed How Duke University Teaches Game Design
    The game dev environment theyโ€™re talking about is MakeCode Arcade. Iโ€™m also a big fan of it. There are a number of little handheld gadgets that you can use with MakeCodeโ€”scroll down on the homepage and thereโ€™s a section that shows them all: https://arcade.makecode.com/. - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • Ask HN: How would u setup a child's first Linux computer?
    I recently installed Ubuntu on a little Geekom mini PC for my 6 and 8 year olds to share. So far my 6 yo isnโ€™t too into it, but her older sister mostly uses it for the games Iโ€™ve put onto it through Epic and Steam and programming using MakeCode, mostly for Arcade (https://arcade.makecode.com) (I have a couple of micro:bit-based handheld shields) and more recently getting into the awesomely simple networking that... - Source: Hacker News / 8 months ago
  • Isometric Projection in Game Development
    Alternatively, get her an emulator of an old 8 or 16 bit system, I started coding at the age of 10 in these systems, with books that were oriented for kids. https://www.atariarchives.org/ http://redparsley.blogspot.com/2016/08/input-magazine-retrospective.html https://archive.org/details/input-hi-01 Or if you prefer something more up to date, https://arcade.makecode.com/. - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
  • Ask HN: Yo wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?
    Https://arcade.makecode.com/ Is great fun to use and made for kids. The forum (forum.makecode.com) is well moderated and safe too. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
  • Copying Angry Birds with nothing but AI
    I'm not sure how this reduces the barrier to game developement. There are already lots of free assets and game engines designed for making arcade games that are a lot easier then say Unity or Unreal. Like https://arcade.makecode.com/ or https://microstudio.dev/ or https://scratch.mit.edu/. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
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WebVM mentions (7)

  • Running Python code in a sandbox with MicroPython and WASM
    The architecture is a fairly straightforward WebAssembly-native monolithic kernel. Most of the complexities come from making things work well within the browser constraints for real world, large apps. We have quite a bit of experience on the topic however, these are previous projects of ours: WebVM (https://webvm.io): x86 Debian shell running client-side in the browser via x86 -> WebAssembly JIT compilation... - Source: Hacker News / 26 days ago
  • A Linux-like kernel in a browser tab โ€“ deep dive in the BrowserPod architecture
    Thanks :-) We have been building WebAssembly-based products for a while now, so for us it's second nature. But I think you are right, most developers, even experienced ones, have not yet come to grasp the fully capabilities of the Web platform in conjunction with WebAssembly. You might find previous projects from us also interesting: * WebVM (https://webvm.io): x86 virtualization in the browser. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 months ago
  • JSLinux Now Supports x86_64
    A somewhat better solution via tailnet you can find in https://webvm.io/. - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • BrowserPod: Universal in-browser sandbox powered by WASM (starting with Node.js)
    Hello HN community, I am very happy to share with you BrowserPod for Node.js - a sandboxed Node runtime, compiled to WebAssembly, that runs completely in the your browser. BrowserPod builds on our previous work on WebAssembly virtualization, see WebVM (https://webvm.io) as an example. The environment is not a simple set of shims, but the "real" Node.js, including support for filesystem, multiple processes and... - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • What Happened to WebAssembly
    We use WebAssembly aggressively at Leaning Technologies across our tools. WebAssembly makes it possible to: * Run x86 binaries in the browser via JIT-ting (https://webvm.io) * Run Java applications in the browser, including Minecraft (https://browsercraft.cheerpj.com) * Run node.js containers in the browser (https://browserpod.io) It's an incredibly powerful tool, but very much a power-user one. Expecting your... - Source: Hacker News / 6 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Microsoft MakeCode Arcade and WebVM, you can also consider the following products

Snap - Snap (formerly BYOB) is a visual, drag-and-drop programming language.

Warp Terminal - The terminal for the 21st century. Warp is a blazingly fast, rust-based terminal reimagined from the ground up to work like a modern app.

Scratch - Scratch is the programming language & online community where young people create stories, games, & animations.

regular expressions 101 - Extensive regex tester and debugger with highlighting for PHP, PCRE, Python and JavaScript.

Pocket Operator PO 20-series - Making electronic music has never been this much fun

CheerpJ - The complete Java runtime for modern browsers. CheerpJ is the only solution that can run any large-scale, unmodified Java applications, applets, or libraries in the browser. No downloads or plugins are required.