Getting started with WebGL development

What is Unity WebGL?

The WebGL build option allows Unity to publish content as JavaScript programs which use HTML5/JavaScript, WebAssembly, WebGL renderingThe process of drawing graphics to the screen (or to a render texture). By default, the main camera in Unity renders its view to the screen. More info
See in Glossary API and other web standards to run Unity content in a web browser. To build and test your content for WebGL, choose the WebGL build target in the Build Player window, and click Build & Run.

Technical overview

We use the emscriptenThe toolchain that Unity uses to convert from C and C++ to WebAssembly. More info
See in Glossary compiler toolchain to cross-compile the Unity runtime code (written in C and C++) into WebAssembly (also known as Wasm), which has been designed to be small in size, load-time and memory efficient as well as able to deliver close to native speed execution. For more information about WebAssembly in Unity, check this blog post.

To convert the .NET game code (your C# scripts) into WebAssembly, we use a technology called IL2CPPA Unity-developed scripting back-end which you can use as an alternative to Mono when building Projects for some platforms. More info
See in Glossary. IL2CPP takes .NET bytecode and converts it to corresponding C++ source files, which is then compiled using emscripten to convert your scriptsA piece of code that allows you to create your own Components, trigger game events, modify Component properties over time and respond to user input in any way you like. More info
See in Glossary to Wasm.

Platform support

Unity WebGL content is supported in the current versions of most major browsers on the desktop, however there are differences in the level of support offered by the different browsers. Mobile devices are not supported by Unity WebGL.

Not all features of Unity are available in WebGL builds, mostly due to constraints of the platform. Specifically:

• Threads are not supported due to the lack of threading supporting in JavaScript. This applies to both Unity’s internal use of threads to speed up performance, and to the use of threads in script code and managed dlls. Essentially, anything in the System.Threading namespace is not supported.

• WebGL builds cannot be debugged in Visual Studio. See: Debugging and trouble shooting WebGL builds.

• Browsers do not allow direct access to IP sockets for networkingThe Unity system that enables multiplayer gaming across a computer network. More info
  See in Glossary, due to security concerns. See: WebGL Networking.

• The WebGL graphics API is equivalent to OpenGL ES 2.0 and 3.0, which has some limitations. See: WebGL Graphics.

• WebGL builds use a custom backend for Audio, based on the Web Audio API. This supports only basic audio functionality. See: Using Audio in WebGL.

• WebGL is an AOT platform, so it does not allow dynamic generation of code using System.Reflection.Emit. This is the same on all other IL2CPP platforms, iOSApple’s mobile operating system. More info
  See in Glossary, and most consoles.

• 2018–03–19  Page amended

• MonoDevelop replaced by Visual Studio from 2018.1

• WebAssembly replaced asm.js from 2018.2

• asm.js removed in 2019.1