10 Open Source SaaS Boilerplates for your next side project
What is SaaS?
Software as a Service, or SaaS, is software available online. Since they are hosted in the cloud and used in a browser instead of downloaded to your device, SaaS applications such as Gmail, Salesforce, and Twitter are technically SaaS services.
SaaS is frequently used in business to refer specifically to a subscription-based billing model. This includes everything with a monthly subscription fee, from JIRA to ChatGPT pro. The most common type of SaaS companies (and arguably startups in general) are business-to-business (B2B) SaaS applications, which bill other businesses a monthly subscription fee.
Most SaaS apps have a lot of similar functionality in terms of technology. They all require, among other things, the ability to be deployed and hosted on cloud infrastructure, user accounts, a front end, a billing system, and more. Boilerplates come into play at this point.
What Are SaaS Boilerplates?
What if you discovered that a template could handle all the tedious, challenging tasks by beginning with a boilerplate that contains everything required, and you no longer had to do them yourself? The answer is yes, and a SaaS boilerplate is exactly what you need. Boilerplates for SaaS contain features that would otherwise take a lot of time and money to develop by business owners.
All SaaS apps share specific characteristics. Whatever you are building, your SaaS will probably require the following:
- The authentication feature manages all login, logout, and forgotten password situations.
- Integration with payments, a method of billing the client, and control over plans and subscriptions.
- Features for managing repeat payments, cancelling subscriptions, and charging credit cards.
- Pre-build permissions and roles management are used to grant and restrict user permissions based on roles with complete end-user control.
- Your users' dashboard
- User profiles
- Integrated component library
Boilerplates come in a wide variety of styles, each with its own capabilities and features that can be found on the market. Depending on your preferred programming language and the architecture you believe your SaaS platform will require, you can select one boilerplate or a starter kit that could serve as the foundation for your future projects.
SaaS Boilerplate for Laravel
The Laravel framework serves as the foundation for this SaaS boilerplate. It was created to give developers a starting point for their SaaS application without the hassle of repeatable tasks like user account setup, subscription management, and role management. It includes a workflow for user authentication, two-factor authentication, Stripe subscriptions, accounts management, a comprehensive subscription workflow, an admin system, a developer panel, and a robust developer-friendly API.
Pricing: Subscription with Stripe (User plans and Team plans)
Stars on Github: 278 stars
Staart SaaS Stack
Staart is an entire open-source Node. js-based SaaS backend. It consists of native mobile apps, an API, and a user interface ready for a solid SaaS platform to be built on top of them.
The main elements of Staart are:
- Staart API: A headless API system that provides a user management system, authentication, authentication using JWT, a Stripe-ready billing system, invoicing, GDPR-compliant data export, and an API gateway.
- Staart UI is a front-end starter with templates for user profiles, settings pages, user authentication codes, landing pages, and more. On top of Next.js and the Vue framework, Start UI was created.
- Staart Native: The Staart Native is a starter mobile app for React Native that uses Expo and Start UI web views for built-in authentication.
- Staart.css is a simple CSS framework that powers Staart UI with UI components.
- A static site generator for help desk or documentation websites is called Staart Site. It produces stunning, easily navigable, and incredibly light websites that receive a perfect score of 100 on Lightbox.
Pricing: Free
Stars on Github: 955 stars
Flask App Builder
A starter Flask package for developing enterprise business apps is the Flask App Builder. It is the perfect option for developers who want to create scalable business apps with a minimal setup. The Flask App Builder includes a tool for automatically creating CRUD records, thorough setup and development instructions, and support for various databases, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Oracle, and MongoDB.
Pricing: Free
Stars on Github: 4.3k stars
SaaS Boilerplate
This one is our personal favorite. Async-Labs' SaaS Boilerplate is an open-source undertaking. It was created using MongoDB and React. By default, it supports WebSocket with socket.io, Amazon AWS S3 for file management, Mailchamp for email operations and newsletters, and server-side rendering for quick loading and better SEO. It also includes a custom logger. The SaaS boilerplate supports team creation and management in addition to a robust user and customer management system, in contrast to other systems on this list. In the backend, Stripe is used by the default SaaS payment and subscription module.
Pricing: Free
Stars on Github: 3.5k stars
Awes.io (Nuxt.js)
Awes.io is an open-source platform and boilerplate for creating business apps with many users and clients. It was designed to help developers generate business systems as SaaS solutions more quickly and at a lower cost. It is constructed using Laravel for the backend REST API and is built on top of Vue, Nuxt, and Tailwind CSS. Awes.io can be used to create ERP, CRM, HRM, and control dashboards for multi-user/customer platforms and SaaS apps. The source code for Awes.io is made available under the MIT license.
Pricing: Free
Stars on Github: 791 stars
SaaS Golang Starter Kit
Another open-source SaaS boilerplate is the SaaS Startup Kit. On this list, it is the only SaaS-ready project created using the Go programming language. It includes a rich REST-API service, a responsive web application, sign-up/login management, and SaaS CRUD operations. It is the perfect option for developers who want to integrate GitLab CI/CD with AWS Serverless infrastructure.
Pricing: Free
Stars on Gitlab: 122 stars
Bullet Train (Ruby)
An MIT-licensed Rails-based framework called Bullet Train will save you months of development by starting you off with all the features common to all products, allowing you to concentrate on what makes your app unique. For creating a front-end SaaS app, it provides a REST API. It supports programmers in controlling user authentication, templating, and other tasks.
Pricing: Free
Stars on Github: 1.3k stars
Graphile Starter (Next.js)
With a pre-built user account and organisation system for full-stack application development in React, Node.js, GraphQL, and PostgreSQL, Graphile Starter is an opinionated SaaS quick-start template. PostGraphile, TypeScript, Apollo Client, Graphile Worker, Graphile Migrate, GraphQL Code Generator, Ant Design, and Next are the software components that power it. To hasten development, the front end uses the AntD design framework. The entire stack is written in TypeScript, and the GraphQL-code-generator automatically generates GraphQL types and operations.
Pricing: Free
Stars on Github: 1.6k stars
Nextacular. co (Next.js)
The SaaS starter kit Nextacular is open-source. It manages the user authentication process and database integration using PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Aurora, supports multiple teams and workspaces, and handles billing and subscription payments using Stripe. It also uses the Next.js framework. Due to Tailwind CSS, numerous integrated SEO features, and the ability to select any email service for email management, such as SendGrid, Mailgun, or Sendbird, Nextacular has extensive developer-friendly documentation.
Pricing: Free
Stars on Github: 679k stars
Strapi SaaS Starter Kit
The Strapi SaaS Starter Kit is a powerful open-source boilerplate allowing developers to build SaaS applications rapidly. Built on top of the Strapi headless CMS, this starter kit provides a solid foundation for managing user authentication, roles and permissions, subscription plans, payments with Stripe, and much more. It also offers features like a customisable user dashboard, email notifications, and integration with popular front-end frameworks like React and Next.js.
Pricing: Free
Stars on GitHub: 1.2k stars
Conclusion
In conclusion, these open-source SaaS boilerplates provide developers valuable starting points for building their next side projects. Whether you prefer Laravel, Node.js, Flask, React, Ruby on Rails, or other frameworks, boilerplates are available for different programming languages and architectural preferences.
These boilerplates offer a range of features, including user authentication, subscription management, billing systems, and more, allowing developers to save time and effort by leveraging pre-built functionality. By choosing the right SaaS boilerplate, developers can kick-start their projects and focus on building unique and innovative SaaS applications. Don't forget to start analysing your SaaS's user experience using Browsee.
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