Actually in my case I need a VM, because I want users to be able to upload "extension plugins" in real-time, without reuploading firmware

In that case which approach / library would you recommend to embedd a WASM VM?

This is exactly what wasm2mpy does for MicroPython: Dynamically loaded, AOT-compiled WASM modules

Okay great! But I'm not using MicroPython, just compiling directly for the ESP32, would that mean that to use wasm2mpy I would need to add a MicroPython VM in my code?

would you say that using wasm2mpy is better suited for my needs than having a wasm runtime like the one of bytecodealliance? What would be the advantage in this case?

Yes, for these microcontroller-type chips, ahead-of-time compilation would be definitely more suitable. WAMR probably supports it, but you can also to it via WASM2C, easily. I prefer not depending on WAMR, it is very bloated

thanks for all those answers! Slava Ukraini

Geroyam Slava!

thanks for your answer!! Can you tell me a bit more about why this suggestion might be more appropriate than the others?

Is it in terms of maturity? Speed? Memory footprint? Safety?

Wasm3 happily runs on ESP32, it provides a fully dynamic wasm runtime. But it's much slower than AOT compiled native code, obviously.