// browser-based serial terminal

Talk to your device without leaving the tab.

Portside opens a real serial connection to any USB-CDC device straight from Chrome or Edge — flash logs, sensor output, AT commands, whatever your board is saying. No app to install, no drivers to track down.

Open terminal → See how it works

Cost: $0

Install required: none

Data leaves your machine: never

Why portside

Built for the fifteen minutes you spend debugging a board

Nothing to configure beyond what you'd expect from a terminal: the port, the baud rate, and a place to type.

01 — ZERO INSTALL

Runs in the tab

No CoolTerm, no PuTTY, no serial-to-USB driver hunting. If your browser supports Web Serial, you're connected in two clicks.

02 — LOCAL ONLY

Nothing round-trips a server

The connection runs directly between your browser and the device. Bytes never touch a backend, because there isn't one.

03 — READABLE LOGS

Built for scanning, not just capturing

Autoscroll, timestamps, and a search box that doesn't fight you — for the moment you're staring at a wall of output looking for one line.

How it works

Three steps, in this order

Plug in your device

Any USB-CDC or USB-serial device — a microcontroller, a modem, a sensor board. It should already show up as a serial port on your machine.

Open the terminal and grant access

Click "Open terminal," then "Connect." Your browser shows its own device picker — portside never sees devices you don't explicitly choose.

Set the baud rate and go

Pick a rate (or leave the default 115200), and you're reading and writing bytes in real time.

Compatibility

Where Web Serial actually works

This is a browser API, not a universal one. Safari and Firefox haven't implemented it yet.

Chrome (desktop) — supported Edge (desktop) — supported Opera (desktop) — supported Safari — not supported Firefox — not supported Mobile browsers — not supported