Waystones Cloud · Getting started
Core concepts
Projects, data models, services, slugs, processing jobs and private projects — the handful of ideas behind Waystones Cloud.
Waystones Cloud has a small vocabulary. Once you know these terms, the rest of the docs read quickly.
Project
A project is one dataset and everything published from it. It holds:
- the data: an uploaded GeoPackage, or a connection to a PostGIS or Supabase database
- the data model: the layers, fields and metadata that describe the data (see below)
- the services published from it, and their settings
The free plan includes one project; paid plans have unlimited projects.
Data model
The data model says what's in the data and how to present it: layer names and titles, field types, the coordinate system, the extent, and descriptive metadata such as the license and contact.
You don't have to write one. When you upload a GeoPackage, Waystones reads the model from the file, and you can edit the descriptive parts afterwards. For full control — codelists, constraints, inheritance, styling — design the model in the Waystones designer.
Snapshots
Waystones doesn't serve your original file or query your database on every request. Instead, it takes a snapshot: the data is converted once into cloud-native formats — GeoParquet for the OGC API, FlatGeobuf for WMS — and served from storage at the edge.
That's why services are fast and cheap to run, and why they never hold open connections to your database. It also means that changes to your data appear when you take a new snapshot:
- GeoPackage: replace the file from the project page or with
waystones-cloud replace. - PostGIS / Supabase: take a new snapshot from the project page. On paid plans you can schedule snapshots.
Services
From one project you can publish:
| Service | What it is | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| OGC API – Features | Features as GeoJSON over HTTP, with filtering, paging and CRS support | Included on every plan |
| WMS | Rendered map images from QGIS Server | Add-on, priced per service |
| Vector tiles | A PMTiles archive with a ready-made style for web maps and QGIS | Generated on request |
| STAC catalog | A catalog of downloadable GeoParquet and GeoPackage files | Generated on request |
OGC API and WMS run as deployments. Vector tiles and STAC catalogs are generated files, built by a processing job and served from storage.
Slug and URL
Each deployment has a slug, which becomes its address: https://<slug>.waystones.cloud. Slugs are 3–63 lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens, and must be unique. On paid plans you can also attach a custom domain.
On-demand services
Services run on demand: they sleep when nobody is using them and wake on the next request. The first request after a quiet spell takes a moment longer; after that, responses are fast. You don't pay for idle time.
Processing jobs
Work done on your data — converting an upload, taking a PostGIS snapshot, generating vector tiles, building a STAC catalog — runs as a processing job. Each completed job counts towards your plan's monthly allowance (30 on the free plan).
Public and private projects
Projects are public by default: anyone with the URL can read the data. Private projects (Wayfarer plan and up) require an API key on every request — see Private services.
Data region
By default, data is stored on a global network close to your users. Tick Store data in EU when creating a project to keep its data in EU-jurisdiction storage, for GDPR or data-residency requirements. EU storage serves from European locations only.