TL;DR

SaaS boilerplate starters are popping up everywhere, but they’re freakin’ expensive (~$200-$800).

I wanted to find the best free, open-source SaaS Starters for React & NextJS that are being actively maintained in 2024.

In the article below, I run through each starter’s features, and their pros and cons, so read on if you’re interested. But I’ve also put together this nice chart below that compares them quickly at a glance (btw, there's a text version of the same chart at the bottom of the article with clickable links).

Enjoy!

Introduction

Software as a Service (SaaS) apps are one of the best ways for indiehackers and solopreneurs to make some good money. Hence why SaaS boilerplate starters are are on the rise! But some of them go for upwards of $2,000 dollars, with the average being about $200.

That’s why I set out to find out if there were any free, open-source SaaS starters and how they measured up. After finding many but noticing that the majority are no longer actively maintained, I narrowed it down to these four free, open-source SaaS Starters: BoxyHQ’s SaaS Starter, Open SaaS, SaaS Starter Kit, and Next SaaS Stripe Starter.

BOXYHQ SaaS Starter Kit

“Your Ultimate Enterprise-Compliant Next.js Boilerplate”

• GitHub: https://github.com/boxyhq/saas-starter-kit
• Video walkthrough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF8QIwQIhyo

BoxyHQ is a company focusing on security, with a specialization in Single-Sign-On (SSO) and enterprise security solutions. So it’s no wonder that this SaaS starter kit, while free and open-source, focuses more on enterprise needs.

So if you’re looking for a clean-looking boilerplate that’s got secure SAML SSO, user account creation, team creation, and management, as well as integration for webhooks and events, then this is your template.

Pros:

• SAML Single Sign-On
• Comprehensive roles and permissions
• Strong focus on enterprise SaaS application development

Cons:

• Geared more toward enterprise-level applications which may be overkill for smaller projects
• Some of the upcoming features such as billing and subscriptions are not yet implemented

Open SaaS

“The free SaaS template with superpowers”

• Website & Demo: https://OpenSaaS.sh
• Github: https://github.com/wasp-lang/open-saas

Open SaaS focuses on creating a full-featured, open-source SaaS boilerplate that’s got everything you’d expect from a paid template, including integrated A.I. examples, configured analytics dashboard for your site’s traffic and revenue stats, and full documentation and support.

It’s brought to you by the Wasp team, a full-stack React / NodeJS / Prisma framework that manages features for you via a config file. This means you can, for example, “roll your own auth” in just a few lines of code because Wasp manages the boilerplate for you.

Pros:

• Leverages Wasp for full-stack development, reducing development time
• Has full documentation and a diverse and supportive community
• Integrated with OpenAI API and includes AI-powered app examples
• End-to-end Typesafety out-of-the-box

Cons:

• Some broader SaaS app features, like testing, may be missing
• Dependent on Wasp, a lesser-known, yet performant, full-stack framework

SaaS Starter Kit

• Website & Demo: https://www.saasstarterkit.com/
• GitHub: https://github.com/Saas-Starter-Kit

SaaS Starter Kit is a modern SaaS boilerplate geared toward creating a comprehensive SaaS solution with free/open-source and pro/paid options.

It’s a simple, clean UI packed with a lot of nice UI components, including Shadcn UI analytics dashboard components. Unfortunately though, you’ll have to integrate them with your own data source as most of the boilerplate comes without the plumbing.

It’s missing a lot of configuration at the moment, but looks like it could be a promising template in the future

Pros:

• Comes in both free and Pro versions, making it adaptable for versatile needs
• Nicely designed UI components, specifically for the Admin dashboard

Cons:

• The Pro version, which has enhanced features, is not free which may discourage some users
• Mostly a collection of UI components with Auth built-in, so developers still need to do a lot of work

Next SaaS Stripe Starter

• Website & Demo: https://next-saas-stripe-starter.vercel.app/
• GitHub: https://github.com/mickasmt/next-saas-stripe-starter

Next SaaS Stripe Starter is a simple, clean looking SaaS boilerplate that leverages modern, trendy tools. Although it’s not as full-featured as some of the others, it looks nice and has a sleek blog, thanks to its use of Shadcn UI and Contentlayer. Generally, it’s in a good state to use as a foundation for your SaaS.

If you’re looking for a minimal NextJS template and are ok with doing a lot of customization and feature development, then this is the one for you.

Pros:

• Looks nice and leverages a variety of trendy tools.
• It includes future updates that cover a resend feature for successful subscriptions and switching subscription plans.

Cons:

• Little to no documentation
• Not as feature-rich as other templates.

VI. Conclusion & Recommendations

While all the SaaS Starters provide a great foundation for your projects, consider BOXYHQ if you’re working on an enterprise-level application. Open SaaS would be the ideal overall template if you are looking for a production-ready template and want to ship fast, while the Next SaaS Stripe Starter is suitable if you’re building a simple/micro-SaaS and you want a modern design aesthetic.