[SOLVED] Run home web site off this ESP32 board? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: Winfried
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2023, 03:53:44 am
content: Hello,I'd like to run a small, static web site at home.Before I make an order, am I correct in understandingthis ESP32-based Lilygo TTGO boardcan do the job, with files living on an SD card?Can it be powered by Linux, or does it require a web server running as the single task?Thank you.

author: girishv
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2023, 06:09:58 am
content: Quote from: Winfried on January 06, 2023, 03:53:44 amIMHO, I don't think you can serve anything meaningful with ESP32. Probably you should consider using Raspberry Pi Zero.There are many Linux distributions with tiny footprint targeting Raspberry Pi Zero. Further, you can explore Busybox-Httpd for serving static content.

author: Winfried
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2023, 12:30:39 pm
content: Apparently, it's doablehttps://www.electronicshub.org/esp32-web-server/I'll also check using a Raspberry Pi Zero.Thank you.

author: bidrohini
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2023, 01:00:58 pm
content: I am aware that we can make web servers like this using the generic ESP32 boards:https://www.theengineeringprojects.com/2021/11/create-a-web-server-with-esp32.htmlThe commonly used ESP32 boards are ESP32-WROOM, ESP32-S2, S3 etc. I clicked on the link that you posted. ESP32-WROVER has been used there. That will work too for a server. But honestly, I have not used this particular board. So, I can't say if the board is good or bad.

author: CountChocula
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 06, 2023, 03:04:14 pm
content: Hello! The main problem you're going to run into is that the ESP32 web server has very limited concurrency; you might get away with one visitor (but just barely, because I doubt that you will be able to server more than 4/5 concurrent requests, and that has to include ancillary data like scripts, CSS, and images), but anything more will probably cause contention and/or exceptions to be thrown. Unless a single visitor is your use case, you're probably better off using something more powerful.—CC

author: Winfried
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2023, 08:42:40 pm
content: Thanks. I'll look into Raspberry Pi then.

author: wizard69
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2023, 09:10:36 pm
content: Quote from: Winfried on January 06, 2023, 08:42:40 pmconcurrent users for a home web site might not be a problem, that is up to your to decide. You will be far better off using a small board that supports linux and large storage, manly because such projects have a tendency to grow over time. Be sure which ever Linux board you choose that it has good WiFi and wired Ethernet support. In the end I think you will be better off connecting such boards via a wired port on your router. Maybe go a step further and get a POE hub and a POE hat for the board to power the board cleanly.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2023, 02:17:30 pm
content: Quote from: bidrohini on January 06, 2023, 01:00:58 pmWROVER and WROOM are basically the same thing, the WROVER simply has an added external QSPI-connected PSRAM chip (which means you lose some GPIOs).

author: bidrohini
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2023, 12:40:26 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on January 08, 2023, 02:17:30 pmThank you. Actually, I am not that familiar with WROVER.

author: Jackster
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2023, 01:06:58 pm
content: The ESP32 web server is only good for serving 1-2 pages to allow a single person to adjust some settings on the ESP32 such as WiFi network or turn on/off IO using a few buttons.My product currently uses it to display back to the user an output of a sensor on a graph and it is super slow for what it is doing.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2023, 09:47:45 pm
content: Quote from: bidrohini on January 09, 2023, 12:40:26 pmIt’s quite common. But unless you absolutely need the extra PSRAM — which isn’t entirely trivial to use: you have to do special things to use the first 4MB, and using the second 4MB is quite a bit more complicated again — and are willing to give up several GPIOs for it, then it’s better to use the WROOM. It’s also physically smaller.For most projects, the standard 320KB internal RAM are more than enough, so the WROOM is sufficient.