Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
[flagged] Ask HN: What's the best SaaS starter kit for indie makers?
10 points by ikoichi2112 on March 14, 2024 | hide | past | favorite | 34 comments
There are many starter kits on the market right now.

I'm looking for an affordable starter kit (<$200) that allows me to validate many product ideas quickly.




aren't you a founder of one? :)

what is the real goal of this post? gauge the market? somehow funnel to your thing? (honestly curious)

//edit I see you already used another account to answer yourself with recommendation of your product

IDK if the solopreneur thing has intensified so much recently, but almost every time I see a thread like that, here or on reddit, it's posted by the creator of the tool and he somehow tries to sneak his product in

for anyone browsing for a starter kit I recommend laravel with a starter kit and laravel stripe package: https://laravel.com/docs/10.x/starter-kits + https://laravel.com/docs/10.x/billing


Hey there.

First of all, this is the only account I own, the other replies are from people I don't know >.<

Second of all, I was asking to see what the community suggests in terms of SaaS Starter Kit, monitor the market, and discover new interesting things that I currently don't know.

I wonder why people always see the rot even where there is none.


The standard answer is "whichever one uses the tech stack you already know".

If you don't already know a tech stack, just pick one and learn it. Then you do know one and can re-use it as you wish.

But "best" is such a subjective term, it always depends on what you really need. Better to pick one and run than get caught in analysis paralysis.


JavaScript stack, both frontend and backend.

For the characteristics I described, validate a product quickly, I don't need a spaceship SaaS boilerplate worth $699.

Do you know any?


Why you're asking? You're the founder of shipped.club, a Next.js SaaS Starter Kit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38517337


I'm asking to discover new things I currently don't, and see what the community suggests.

As simple as that :-)


https://shipped.club

this one is just under $200

;)


good one :D


Stay away from https://shipped.club. Even the founder (OP) doesn't want to use it.


LOL


Not exactly a starter kit, but something I think could be useful during early development: Noop Workshop [1]. Full disclosure I work @ noop.

One of the primary benefits is you can quickly explore what Cloud components you need (locally) before purchasing them. We also built a bunch of templates in different languages that act as application boilerplate.

If it works the way you want in Workshop you can launch right to the cloud. If not it's easy to find alternative hosts for the different components. After all, Noop uses many AWS services under the hood.

The interface for local development is almost identical to the cloud interface, so it will give you a pretty clear idea of what the experience will be like in deployed environments.

1. https://noop.dev


I love what I see! Noop looks great for local development, and deployment to cloud services. I'll give it a try as soon as possible.

These are the pain points I'm looking for: - avoid vendor lock-in (avoid using Vercel, also for bandwidth cost) - continuous deployment (push to git) - let's encrypt certificates auto-renewal - scaling? (might be not necessary TBH)


This question has come up many times (here's one thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30807759)

Like others have said, pick the tech you want to use first, then find a good one that uses that tech! I would look for reviews, a history of updates, and a founder who knows their stuff.

There's many directories listing them - probably the most comprehensive one is here: https://github.com/smirnov-am/awesome-saas-boilerplates

Good luck!


Thanks!


"language you know" saas starter kit, get to the github repo and search for issues/activity (remember to include closed issues when you are looking)

A better question would be: what should I look for in a SaaS starter kit?

You will get a lot of opinionated responses, but for me at least, what I'm most interested in:

- admin dashboard

- ability to integrate/generate different billing/invoice/payment options

- multiuser strategy

- deploy options


Good strategy, thanks!

Have you ever launched and run a SaaS business? I'm curious to know why you're looking for an admin dashboard (what should it include?) and what's multiuser strategy.


Yes a few.

The admin dashboard is important to manage plans, users and at least some tables on the db.

Multiuser strat is how you differentiate between users when storing data.


I maintain a good list of modern fullstack boilerplates at https://www.builtatlightspeed.com/category/fullstack


Great directory website! Love the filters, I'll check it out — Thanks!


There is no best one. You will unfortunately (!) need to do some legwork to decide what you want to build, what you need, what tech you want to use and why, and see if there is a starter kit that is good or if you have to just do without one.

Is the chosen starter kit good? Clues may lie in licenses, the repo if source is available, if paid is there a money back guarantee, is it maintained, is the code any good (do they know what they are doing?). Does it meet your functional and nonfunctional requirements?

Take this as advise for a lonely programmer OR (!) user feedback for your gig (!!) ;)


Great insights and questions to ask. Love your perspective on the topic, thanks for sharing it :-)



It looks good! Thanks


The sole purpose of these types of questions is to allow the questioner or others to push their products.


The sole purpose of these types of questions is to see what the community suggests, evaluate the market, and discover new interesting things that I currently don't know (for others is the same I guess).


Definitely https://shipflask.com ;)


I'm not into Python, but it looks great ;-)


Check out https://boilerplatehub.com/

That's a nice selection of Starter Kits.


Thanks for sharing, I didn't know this directory!


If you are working with or building an API, Treblle has a really good free tier, plus completely free apps (no login required) - API Insights and Aspen API testing.


Thanks, it looks great, even tho a bit overkill to validate some SaaS product ideas. I'll consider it in the future, thanks!


A free one on github.


which one? do you know any?





Consider applying for YC's Fall 2025 batch! Applications are open till Aug 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: