Choosing a Build

Choosing a build

wfweb ships in two flavours. Both run in the browser; they differ in what drives the rig.

• Standalone is a pure-browser page that controls the rig directly over Web Serial. There is no server process at all. It is the easiest route if you have a USB Icom and a Chromium-family browser. See Standalone.
• Server is the native binary. It connects to the rig over USB or LAN and serves the UI to any browser, on any device, including several at once. See Installing the Server and Docker.

	Standalone	Server
USB-attached rig	✓ (Icom)	✓
LAN-attached rig	—	✓
Browser	Chromium-family only (Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc, Opera)	any
Phone or tablet as the only device	— (no Web Serial on mobile browsers)	✓
Headless, multi-user, unattended	—	✓
FT8/FT4, JS8, CW, AX.25 packet	✓	✓
RADE voice	✓	✓
Classic FreeDV (700D/700E/1600)	—	✓
PSK Reporter / FreeDV Reporter spotting	—	✓
Hamlib rigctld for other programs	—	✓
Logbook	in the browser	on the server, shared by every browser

Rules of thumb

• A USB Icom on the desk, and you operate from that same computer: Standalone. Open the page, pick the port, done.
• You want to operate from a phone, a tablet, or another room: Server. The phone opens the server's address; the server sits next to the radio (a Raspberry Pi is plenty for everything but RADE).
• The radio has Ethernet (IC-7610, IC-9700, IC-7300 Mk2, IC-705 over Wi-Fi): Server, with --lan.
• You want the station on 24 hours a day, spotting FT8 or running APRS beacons without a browser attached: Server.
• A Kenwood or Yaesu: Server only, and check Rig Compatibility first.

Both builds share the same page, so what you learn in one carries over to the other.