WebGL
ELI5 — The Vibe Check
WebGL gives your browser direct access to the GPU for rendering 2D and 3D graphics at blazing speed. It's incredibly powerful and incredibly verbose — drawing a triangle takes about 100 lines of code. This is why Three.js exists. You're welcome.
Real Talk
WebGL (Web Graphics Library) is a JavaScript API for rendering hardware-accelerated 2D and 3D graphics in the browser without plugins. Based on OpenGL ES, it provides low-level GPU access via shader programs written in GLSL. WebGL 2.0 adds advanced features from OpenGL ES 3.0.
When You'll Hear This
"Raw WebGL is too low-level for most projects — use Three.js or Babylon.js" / "Our data visualization needed WebGL to render 100,000 points at 60fps"
Related Terms
Canvas API
The Canvas API gives you a blank rectangle and says 'draw whatever you want with code.' It's like MS Paint but controlled by JavaScript.
GPU Acceleration
GPU acceleration is when the browser offloads rendering work to your graphics card instead of making the CPU do everything.
Three.js
Three.js lets you build 3D worlds in the browser — spinning products, interactive scenes, entire games.