How to run a node-red flow client side?

Question

I am trying to setup a webpage using particle.io's node-red service and would like to allow for multiple simultaneous users to customize their view without it affecting what is displayed to other users. My current setup is all anonymous users (no actual login).

Currently, if I setup a flow to load a detailed view of a sensor, whenever a user decides to view the data from a different device the display changes for everyone as everything is in a single server side instance.

Is there a way to tell node-red to run this detailed instance client side, and rather just stream a portion of the data from the server to the client?

Answer 1

No ^*

The only part of Node-RED that runs in the clients browser is the flow editor, all the actual processing runs in the backend. Also Node-RED only runs one flow at a time, if you want to run multiple independent flows (one per user) then they will each need a separate instance.

This sort of setup is possible but requires building a surrounding infrastructure (eg Sensetecnic's FRED platform) to manage the instances and you are most likely going to need to have actual users so you can connect a returning user back to their instance when they return.

^* a long LONG time ago there was a port of Node-RED that ran entirely in the browser, no back end at all. But I have not heard of it in a long time and it only worked with a small subset of specially adapted nodes. I have not heard about it in a LONG time so I assume it is VERY out of date.