STYLUS
Stylus is a development framework of Arbitrum, designed for creating EVM-compatible smart contracts using programming languages that compile to WebAssembly (WASM), such as Rust, C, and C++. Introduced as an upgrade to Arbitrum Nitro, Stylus operates alongside Ethereum's EVM, offering a second, coequal WASM virtual machine. This allows for full interoperability between Solidity and Stylus contracts. One of the key advantages of Stylus is its efficiency. Contracts developed with Stylus are reported to be an "order of magnitude faster with significantly lower gas fees" compared to traditional Solidity contracts. This is attributed to the superior efficiency of WASM programs. Additionally, memory is 100-500 times cheaper when using Stylus, enabling new blockchain use cases that were previously impractical due to high RAM consumption. Stylus also leverages Arbitrum Nitro's unique fraud-proving technology, which allows for deterministic proof of any program that compiles down to WASM. This technological capability is what makes the Stylus framework possible. As of the alpha release, the framework is still in the public preview stage and is not recommended for production use. Developers interested in Stylus can use the Stylus SDK and CLI tool to start building today.
Offchain Labs's Arbitrum Stylus Goes Live
Offchain Labs has released the public testnet and code for Arbitrum Stylus, an open-source framework for smart contracts on Arbitrum Nitro chains. The SDK offers 10x improvement in computational speed and 100x improvement in memory efficiency, reducing gas costs and improving smart contract security.