The Secret Weapon
Raiser
A typed virtual machine that beats V8 cold starts by 10x. No JIT warmup, no compilation wait.
What is Raiser?
Raiser is a bytecode VM that runs your MetaScript code instantly. Types known at compile time means no runtime type checking - every operation is as fast as it can be.
Benchmarks
Fibonacci(30) - RecursiveK ops/sec (higher is better)
→ Raiser1.0x
Bun0.73x
Deno0.23x
Node.js (V8)0.21x
Safari (JSCore)0.19x
JSON Parse/Stringify (10K objects)K ops/sec (higher is better)
→ Raiser1.0x
Bun0.76x
Node.js (V8)0.34x
Deno0.30x
Object Property Access (1M iterations)K ops/sec (higher is better)
→ Raiser1.0x
Bun0.67x
Node.js (V8)0.28x
Deno0.25x
* Measured on M4 MacBook Pro, 10 iterations averaged
Why Raiser Wins
V8/JSCore path:
Source → Parse → Bytecode → Interpret (cold) → Profile → JIT → Fast
Raiser path:
Source → Parse → Type Check → Typed Bytecode → Fast (always)
No JIT warmup
Peak performance from first run
No type guards
Types proven at compile time
No hidden classes
Direct memory offsets
No deoptimization
No speculative optimization to undo
Tiny VM (~15KB) fits in L1 cache. V8 is ~MB.
The Secret: Types Eliminate Runtime Checks
V8 and JavaScriptCore spend most of their time figuring out types at runtime:
V8 does 6 operations. Raiser does 4. Every single opcode.
Use Cases
Game Scripting
Edit, save, see changes instantly - no restart needed.
Plugin Systems
Users extend your app without recompiling. Full type safety for plugin APIs.
Configuration as Code
Config files that can compute values, not just declare them.
Hot Reload
Update running code without losing state:
When to Use Raiser
| Scenario | Recommendation |
|---|---|
| Production deployment | C backend |
| Game scripting | Raiser |
| Plugin systems | Raiser |
| Development iteration | Raiser |
| Browser apps | JS backend |
| Distributed systems | Erlang backend |