Best SaaS Stack in 2025 - Frameworks, Tools, Libraries and Services

If you're building a SaaS product in 2025, you’re probably overwhelmed by the sheer number of options available for your tech stack. From frontend frameworks to ORMs, backend runtimes to UI libraries, the landscape is more powerful—and more fragmented—than ever. At supastarter, we've evaluated countless tools and frameworks to build a modern, scalable, and maintainable foundation for SaaS apps. In this post, we'll share our recommended stack, explain why we made these choices, and compare a few popular alternatives.

TL;DR: There is no one-size-fits-all solution. But if you're looking to build a modern SaaS app with best-in-class developer experience, performance, and scalability, here's a stack that delivers.

Frontend/Fullstack Framework: Next.js vs Nuxt vs SvelteKit

At the core of any web app is the frontend framework. We support Next.js (React), Nuxt (Vue) and SvelteKit because each offers robust full-stack capabilities, great developer tooling, and strong community support.

• Next.js is ideal if you're already in the React ecosystem. It shines with features like App Router, edge-first rendering, and seamless integration with Vercel.
• Nuxt 3 brings the same level of maturity to the Vue world. Its file-based routing, powerful module system, and SSR-first mindset make it a strong contender.
• SvelteKit is the lightweight and developer-friendly Svelte framework, which is gaining traction fast and is becoming a great alternative to the other two.

Our recommendation? Go with what your team is most comfortable with. At supastarter, we offer boilerplates for all three, Next.js, Nuxt and SvelteKit to give you the powerful features with the developer experience you want.

Backend: Hono.js

While Next.js and Nuxt both support backend logic, we prefer to separate concerns with a dedicated API layer. Hono.js is our go-to backend framework: it’s ultra-fast, lightweight, and optimized for edge environments like Vercel and Cloudflare Workers.

Hono pairs beautifully with our frontend stack and supports typed routes and middlewares with minimal overhead.

In addition to that, you can easily deploy your Hono backend as a standalone service if you prefer self-hosting and full control over your infrastructure, with added benefits like better performance and lower costs.

ORM: Prisma vs Drizzle

Both Prisma and Drizzle ORM are excellent tools for database access:

• Prisma offers an intuitive data model and powerful type safety. It’s our default for most projects.
• Drizzle shines with its SQL-like syntax and lightweight footprint. It’s ideal for edge functions and smaller deployments.

In supastarter, you can choose your ORM depending on your use case.

Styling and UI: Tailwind CSS + Radix UI + shadcn/ui

Modern UI development is all about composition, accessibility, and speed. Our stack includes:

• Tailwind CSS for utility-first styling.
• Radix UI for unstyled, accessible primitives.
• shadcn/ui to combine both in a beautiful, reusable component system.

The result? A clean, consistent design system that scales, is accessible and fully customizable.

Authentication: better-auth

We use better-auth, a modern auth solution designed for full-stack TypeScript apps. It supports:

• Social logins
• Email magic links
• Session-based auth
• Serverless-friendly workflows

It integrates seamlessly with Hono and both Next.js/Nuxt.

Payments: Stripe vs Polar

Monetizing your SaaS? We’ve got you covered with:

• Stripe: the industry standard for subscriptions, usage billing, and invoicing.
• Polar: a newer, open-source option that’s especially interesting for indie developers and sponsorship-based models.
• Lemonsqueezy: MoR with a lot of features like email marketing and affiliate program
• Creem: MoR with with competitive pricing

supastarter ships with built-in integrations for all of them.

Power Tools We Love

Besides the core stack, we also use the love and use the following tools:

• zod: for schema validation
• TanStack Query: for data fetching, caching, and optimistic UI.
• Vercel AI SDK: for LLM-based features like chatbots or smart assistants.
• content-collections: our own markdown-based CMS layer for blogs, changelogs, and docs.
• ... and many more!

Conclusion: Choose the Right Stack for Your SaaS

There’s no perfect stack for every project—but there is a best stack for your SaaS. supastarter gives you a strong, customizable foundation built with the tools we trust to ship faster and scale reliably.

Whether you're starting your next side project or building a VC-backed startup, supastarter helps you skip the boilerplate and focus on what really matters: your product.

Try supastarter today supastarter.dev and launch your SaaS with confidence.