diff --git a/guide/src/SUMMARY.md b/guide/src/SUMMARY.md
index 341e441ee..551803e05 100644
--- a/guide/src/SUMMARY.md
+++ b/guide/src/SUMMARY.md
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
- [What Just Happened?](./what-just-happened.md)
- [What Else Can We Do?](./what-else-can-we-do.md)
- [Closures](./closures.md)
+- [No ES Modules](./no-esm.md)
- [Feature Reference](./feature-reference.md)
- [CLI Reference](./cli-reference.md)
- [Type Reference](./reference.md)
diff --git a/guide/src/cli-reference.md b/guide/src/cli-reference.md
index e1bea3403..8ea5719b6 100644
--- a/guide/src/cli-reference.md
+++ b/guide/src/cli-reference.md
@@ -19,11 +19,9 @@ some notable options are:
* `--no-modules`: the default output of `wasm-bindgen` uses ES modules but this
option indicates that ES modules should not be used and output should be
- tailored for a web browser. In this mode `window.wasm_bindgen` will be a
- function that takes a path to the wasm file to fetch and instantiate.
- Afterwards exported functions from the wasm are available through
- `window.wasm_bindgen.foo`. Note that the name `wasm_bindgen` can be configured
- with the `--no-modules-global FOO` flag.
+ tailored for a web browser. More information on this flag, and
+ `--no-modules-global`, can be found in the [no ES modules
+ documentation](./no-esm.html).
* `--no-typescript`: by default a `*.d.ts` file is generated for the generated
JS file, but this flag will disable generating this TypeScript file.
diff --git a/guide/src/no-esm.md b/guide/src/no-esm.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..25465de54
--- /dev/null
+++ b/guide/src/no-esm.md
@@ -0,0 +1,79 @@
+# No ES Modules
+
+Explained a bit more in the [internal design](design.html) section one of the
+key foundational principles of `wasm-bindgen` is ES modules. It supports working
+without ES modules, however! Not all JS tooling and browsers are ready for ES
+modules by default, so it can sometimes be helpful to quickly get up and running
+without them to kick the tires and see how `wasm-bindgen` works.
+
+Let's start out with our hello-world example from previous chapters, and you can
+also [follow along in the repository][repo].
+
+[repo]: https://github.com/rustwasm/wasm-bindgen/tree/master/examples/no_modules
+
+```rust
+#[wasm_bindgen]
+extern {
+ fn alert(msg: &str);
+}
+
+#[wasm_bindgen]
+pub fn greet(name: &str) -> String {
+ alert(&format!("Hello, {}!", name);
+}
+```
+
+Like usual, we first compile this to wasm:
+
+```
+$ cargo build --target wasm32-unknown-unknown
+```
+
+Next, to avoid using ES modules, pass the `--no-modules` option to the
+`wasm-bindgen` command:
+
+```
+$ wasm-bindgen target/wasm32-unknown-unknown/debug/hello.wasm --no-modules --out-dir .
+```
+
+Next up we need to write some HTML to interact with the wasm:
+
+```html
+
+
+
+
+
+
+```
+
+and that's it! If you open up that web page in a browser (needs to be over HTTP)
+then you should see an alert for "Hello, World!".
+
+The `--no-modules` output will not instantiate or compile the wasm module when
+included on a web page, instead it just parses and configures the JS bindings
+for the wasm-module-to-be. The page is configured with one exported global, in
+this case `wasm_bindgen`. The name of this global can be configured with the
+`--no-modules-global` option.
+
+The global `wasm_bindgen` is a function that takes one argument, the path to the
+wasm file. When invoked `wasm_bindgen` will return a promise for when the wasm
+file is ready-to-go. After that all exported functionality on
+`wasm_bindgen` will be functional.
+
+In the example above, after calling `wasm_bindgen('./hello_bg.wasm')` we wait
+for the wasm module to be compiled, and afterwards we're invoking our `greet`
+export.
+
+Note that exports are available for binding before the wasm module has been
+instantiated, for example this would have also worked:
+
+```js
+const { greet } = wasm_bindgen;
+
+wasm_bindgen('./hello_bg.wasm')
+ .then(() => greet('World'));
+```