Hi! Dart can be compiled to JavaScript, but it also has its own VM (kind of like NodeJS) which runs Dart directly, and it can also be AOT compiled to native code (assembly). The latter two (VM & native) are much, much faster than the former (JS).

But Dart compiled to JS runs about the same speed as hand-written JavaScript. So if you don’t do anything crazy (like really expensive computation), and need something that runs on the web, Dart can deliver.

I’ll update this article with the latest on Dart. I wrote this 2 years ago, when the AOT compilation was still in its infancy.