markdown-wasm

Small Rust + wasm markdown parser.

Install

Requirements:

• Rust and Cargo
• Node.js (or Bun)
• wasm-pack

Install wasm-pack:

cargo install wasm-pack

Build and run locally

Build the wasm package:

npm run build

This generates the TS/WASM bindings in pkg/.

Usage

The module comes with one function: parse_markdown(input: string)

import { parse_markdown } from "markdown_wasm";

await init();

const input = `# Hello`
const html = parse_markdown(input);

console.log(html);

Feature Checklist

Core Markdown

• Headings (# to ### currently parsed)
• Paragraph blocks (including multi-line paragraphs)
• Unordered lists
• Ordered lists
• Fenced code blocks (``` and ~~~)
• Blockquotes
• Thematic breaks (---, ***, ___)
• Inline links ([text](url))
• Emphasis (*italic*, **bold**)
• Images (![alt](src))
• Inline code spans (`code`)
• Autolinks (<https://example.com>)
• Backslash escapes (\*, \[, etc.)
• HTML escaping in rendered output

GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM)

• Tables
• Task lists (- [ ] / - [x])
• Strikethrough (~~text~~)
• Autolink literals (https://example.com)
• Footnotes
• Pipe table alignment (:---, :---:, ---:)

Other Common Markdown Features

• Setext headings (Heading + ===)
• Indented code blocks (4-space)
• Reference-style links ([text][id])

Benchmarks

Using @rsms/markdown-wasm's bench suite for comparison. Ran on Window 11 Version 10.0.26200 Build 26200. Ran on an AMD 7800X3D.

Average ops/second

Ops/second represents how many times a library is able to parse markdown and render HTML during a second, on average across all sample files.

Average throughput

Throughput is the average amount of markdown data processed during a second while both parsing and rendering to HTML. The statistics does not include HTML generated but only bytes of markdown source text parsed.

Min–max parse time

This graph shows the spread between the fastest and slowest parse-and-render operations for each library. Lower numbers are better.