Waystones Cloud · Guides
Coming from GeoServer
How GeoServer workspaces, stores, layers, WFS, WMS, styles and security map to Waystones Cloud — and what Waystones doesn't do.
Waystones Cloud covers the most common GeoServer job: take vector data from a file or a PostGIS database and publish it as standards-based web services. This page maps what you know from GeoServer to its Waystones equivalent, and says plainly where Waystones stops.
How the model differs
| GeoServer | Waystones Cloud |
|---|---|
| A server you install, patch and scale | A managed service — nothing to install or run |
| Workspace | Project |
| Store (Shapefile, GeoPackage, PostGIS…) | An uploaded GeoPackage, or a PostGIS / Supabase connection |
| Publishing a layer from a store | Layers come from the data model, inferred from the GeoPackage or designed in the Waystones designer |
| Layer title, abstract, keywords, contact | Service details |
| Live queries against the store | Snapshots: data converted once to GeoParquet / FlatGeobuf and served from storage |
Service URL per workspace (/geoserver/<ws>/wms) | Its own URL per deployment: https://<slug>.waystones.cloud |
| Admin web UI and REST API | The dashboard, the CLI and the QGIS plugin |
Services
| GeoServer | Waystones Cloud |
|---|---|
| WFS | OGC API – Features, WFS's successor. QGIS and ArcGIS Pro read it from the same dialog. See Use your API. |
WFS GetFeature with BBOX | /collections/{id}/items?bbox=… |
ECQL / CQL_FILTER | filter with CQL2 — similar syntax, an OGC standard. See the API reference. |
srsName | crs, with any supported CRS URI |
maxFeatures / count + startIndex | limit + the next link |
| WMS | WMS from QGIS Server, as an add-on |
| GeoWebCache tile layers | Vector tiles (PMTiles) with a generated style |
| — | STAC catalog with bulk GeoParquet and GeoPackage downloads |
Styling
GeoServer styles are SLD or CSS. Waystones styles come from the data model: set them in the designer's style editor, or publish with the QGIS plugin, which carries your QGIS symbology across. SLD files are not imported.
Security
| GeoServer | Waystones Cloud |
|---|---|
| Users, groups and roles | Account and organisation members in the dashboard |
| Layer- and service-level access rules | Whole-project access: public, or private with API keys |
| HTTP basic auth on services | An API key in the Authorization: ApiKey … header or api_key parameter |
What Waystones Cloud doesn't do
Be sure these don't matter for your use case before you move:
- Raster data — no GeoTIFF, WCS or raster tiles yet.
- WFS itself — clients that only speak WFS (some older tools) need OGC API – Features support.
- WFS-T / editing — services are read-only.
- Live database queries — data is served from snapshots, so edits appear after the next snapshot.
- Per-layer access rules — access is per project.
- SLD / CSS styles and GeoServer extensions such as WPS.
Moving a layer across
- Export the layer's data to a GeoPackage — from QGIS, or with
ogr2ogr -f GPKG out.gpkg "WFS:https://your-geoserver/geoserver/wfs" layername. - Upload it and fill in the service details from the layer's GeoServer metadata.
- Deploy, then point clients at the new URL — see Use your API.
For a PostGIS-backed store, connect the database through the designer instead, so new data reaches the service with each snapshot.