Native binaries

Using packages with native binary components

Overview

BrowserPod can run any JavaScript code that runs in Node.js. But there are NPM packages that ship native binary components for specific architectures. These are usually build-time tools like compilers and bundlers.

These native binaries cannot run in BrowserPod, but they often have alternatives that are compiled to WebAssembly and are thus truly cross-platform.

In order to use these alternatives, you need to specify them as overrides in your package.json file.

In this page you can find a list of well-known packages with native binary dependencies and their corresponding WebAssembly overrides.

esbuild

This is a very commonly used bundler. It can be used directly but it’s also a dependency of the vite build tool.

To replace it with the WebAssembly version, add this to your package.json:

{
  ...,
  "overrides": {
    "esbuild": "npm:esbuild-wasm@*",
  },
  ...
}

rollup

This is a very commonly used bundler. It can be used directly but it’s also a dependency of the vite build tool.

To replace it with the WebAssembly version, add this to your package.json:

{
  ...,
  "overrides": {
    "rollup": "npm:@rollup/wasm-node@*"
  },
  ...
}