The Web SDK puts a cloud-rendered Unreal application directly in your page — not inside an iframe — and hands you JavaScript control of it. Start and stop sessions, send data to the application, react to what it sends back, change quality while it runs.
Embedding compares all three methods topic by topic. The short version of why you would pick this one:
| What it gives you | |
|---|---|
| Streaming URL | A link. Nothing to build, and nothing you control. |
| iframe | The stream on your page, controlled by posting messages to the frame. Your page cannot reach inside it. |
| Web SDK | The stream is part of your page. Direct JavaScript calls, and — the part that usually decides it — your server decides who is allowed to start one. |
That last row is the real argument. With a link or an iframe, the link itself grants access and you cannot revoke it for one person. With the SDK a session starts from a short-lived token, so your backend chooses who gets one, when, and for which application — see keeping your API key off the browser.
The Web SDK is built on Epic's PixelStreamingInfrastructure frontend — the same library that ships with Unreal Engine — and adds the part that library has no concept of: finding a machine, launching your application on it, queueing, session tokens and expiry, and the callbacks around all of that.
github.com/e3ds/pixelstreaming-sdk — the same code the demo runs on, and what Set up the Web SDK walks you through.
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