Services vs Widgets — When to use which?

Mesh has two concepts that look similar at first glance: Services and Widgets. They have very different purposes however.

Services — the launcher

• One card = one clickable link to an external web UI (e.g. Home Assistant, Portainer, Frigate)
• Status dot shows online/offline from the in-process healthcheck scheduler (every 10 s)
• Categories: infrastructure, media, smart-home, tools, external
• Always fully visible on the Services page (/services)
• On the Dashboard only those marked as "pinnedToHome"

→ Manage under Admin → Content → Services.

Widgets — live data

• One tile = active data display with live values (CPU, RAM, DNS stats, weather, sensors, container counts, …)
• Pull data from configured integrations (Glances, AdGuard, HA, ESPHome, …)
• Live in the 24×20 grid (react-grid-layout), freely draggable in edit mode
• 19 different kinds available (see Integrations Overview)
• Appear on the dashboard only, not on /services

→ Manage under Admin → Content → Widgets.

Quick Links

The small row at the very bottom of the footer ("Quick Access") are neither services nor widgets — just simple links without a status indicator.

→ Manage under Admin → Content → Quick Access.

InfraNodes (server cards)

The large cards at the top of the dashboard with CPU/RAM/Array bars. They represent physical servers and combine data from Unraid GraphQL + Glances (see Glances).

→ Manage under Admin → Content → Server Cards.

Decision guide