supastarter vs ShipFast
An honest comparison of supastarter and ShipFast. See how the two Next.js SaaS boilerplates differ in architecture, features, and long-term scalability — so you can pick the right foundation for your project.Get supastarter for Next.jsExplore the docs
⚖️ How do supastarter and ShipFast compare?
Both supastarter and ShipFast are Next.js SaaS boilerplates designed to help you ship products faster. They share the same core promise — skip the repetitive setup and jump straight to building your product — but they take very different approaches to get there.
ShipFast is built for speed and simplicity. It's a straightforward, single-app template that gets you from zero to a deployed landing page with payments quickly. Its lower complexity makes it easy to pick up, especially for solo developers working on smaller projects.
supastarter is built for scale and long-term maintainability. It uses a modular monorepo architecture with shared packages, supports multiple frameworks, and includes enterprise-grade features like multi-tenancy, i18n, and a type-safe API layer.
Here's how they stack up across the areas that matter most.
🔍 Feature comparison
| Feature | supastarter | ShipFast |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Modular monorepo | Single-app template |
| Framework support | Next.js, Nuxt | Next.js only |
| Authentication | better-auth (2FA, RBAC) | NextAuth (basics only) |
| Database ORM | Prisma or Drizzle | Mongoose (MongoDB only) |
| API layer | Hono / oRPC with OpenAPI | Next.js API routes |
| Multi-tenancy | ✅ Built-in organizations & teams | ❌ Not included |
| Internationalization | ✅ Full i18n support | ❌ Not included |
| Payment providers | ✅ Stripe, Lemon Squeezy, Polar, Creem, Dodo | ⚠️ Stripe only |
| Admin panel | ✅ Built-in admin dashboard | ❌ Not included |
| Type safety | ✅ End-to-end typed API | ⚠️ Partial |
| AI agent support | ✅ Cursor, Windsurf, Claude Code | ❌ Not optimized |
| Maintenance | ✅ Actively maintained | ❌ Infrequent updates |
🏗️ Architecture
This is where the two boilerplates diverge most significantly.
ShipFast uses a single Next.js application where all logic lives together. This keeps things simple and makes onboarding quick — you can read through the entire codebase in a single sitting. For solo projects and MVPs, that simplicity is a real advantage.
supastarter uses a modular monorepo powered by Turborepo. Authentication, database, API, email, and UI logic are separated into dedicated packages. This approach requires a bit more initial familiarity, but it pays off as your project grows:
- Each module has a clear responsibility, making the codebase easier to navigate at scale
- Multiple developers can work on different packages without stepping on each other
- Packages can be reused across applications (e.g., if you later add a mobile backend or admin service)
- Upgrades and dependency changes are isolated to the packages that need them
This is the same architectural pattern used by teams at Vercel, Linear, and Cal.com.
🔐 Authentication
ShipFast ships with NextAuth, which is a well-known and capable authentication library. It covers the basics — social logins, email/password, and session management.
supastarter uses better-auth, a modern authentication library built for extensibility. On top of the standard flows, it includes:
- Two-factor authentication (2FA)
- Magic link authentication
- Role-based access control
- Organization-level permissions
- Passkey support
If your project needs more than basic auth — especially for B2B use cases with teams and permissions — better-auth provides that out of the box.
🗄️ Database
ShipFast uses Mongoose with MongoDB. MongoDB works well for document-oriented data and offers flexibility in schema design. However, most SaaS applications deal with relational data (users, teams, subscriptions, invoices), where relational databases tend to be a better fit.
supastarter lets you choose between Prisma and Drizzle, both of which work with PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQLite. This gives you:
- Proper relational modeling with foreign keys and constraints
- Transaction support for data consistency
- Schema migrations for reliable deployments
- The flexibility to pick the ORM that matches your preference
🌐 Internationalization
ShipFast does not include i18n support. If your product needs to support multiple languages, you'd need to integrate a solution yourself.
supastarter ships with full i18n built in, including server-side and client-side translations, locale-aware routing, and structured translation files. For products targeting a global audience, this saves a significant amount of integration work.
💳 Payment providers
ShipFast integrates with Stripe, which is the most popular payment platform for SaaS.
supastarter supports five payment providers: Stripe, Lemon Squeezy, Polar, Creem, and Dodo Payments. The billing logic is abstracted behind a common interface, so switching providers doesn't require rewriting your application code. This is particularly relevant if you operate in regions where Stripe isn't available, or if you prefer a merchant-of-record model to handle tax compliance.
👥 Multi-tenancy
Most B2B SaaS products eventually need multi-tenancy — the ability to organize users into teams, workspaces, or organizations with separate billing and permissions.
ShipFast doesn't include multi-tenancy. Adding it retroactively to a codebase not designed for it is a significant engineering effort.
supastarter includes built-in multi-tenancy with organization management, member invitations, role-based permissions, per-organization billing, and an organization-switching UI. If you're building a B2B product, this saves weeks of development time.
🔌 API layer
ShipFast uses standard Next.js API routes for backend logic. This is simple and works well for straightforward endpoints.
supastarter offers a dedicated API layer with Hono or oRPC, including automatic OpenAPI specification generation. This gives you a structured, type-safe API with proper validation, error handling, and documentation — which becomes increasingly valuable as your API surface grows.
🛡️ Production readiness
Both boilerplates will get you a working application. The difference is in how much production infrastructure is included.
supastarter ships with:
- Type-safe API validation with Zod
- Email templates with React Email
- Background job support
- SEO optimization with proper meta tags and sitemaps
- CI/CD-friendly monorepo setup
- Admin dashboard for managing users and data
- AI coding agent optimization (AGENTS.md, structured codebase)
These are features that most SaaS products need eventually. Having them built in from the start means less retrofitting later.
🔄 Maintenance and updates
ShipFast is primarily a one-time purchase with community-driven updates.
supastarter is actively maintained with regular dependency updates, new features based on community feedback, prompt security patches, and compatibility with the latest Next.js releases. When you buy supastarter, you're investing in a foundation that evolves with the ecosystem.
💡 Which one should you choose?
Choose ShipFast if:
- You're building a simple, single-developer project
- You want the fastest possible time-to-landing-page
- You prefer MongoDB and a flat project structure
- You don't need multi-tenancy, i18n, or multiple payment providers
Choose supastarter if:
- You're building a SaaS that needs to scale beyond an MVP
- You want a well-architected codebase that multiple developers can work on
- You need enterprise features like multi-tenancy, i18n, or flexible payments
- You value long-term maintainability and active maintenance
- You want a production-ready foundation, not just a starting point
🎯 The bottom line
ShipFast and supastarter serve different needs. ShipFast is optimized for getting a basic product online quickly. supastarter is optimized for building a product that grows with your business.
If you're looking for a foundation you won't outgrow — one that's scalable, actively maintained, and production-ready from day one — supastarter is built for that.
Focus on what matters to your customers, skip the boilerplate.
Authentication
supastarter includes all common authentication methods, gives you full control over your user data and let's you fully customize the authentication flow.
Choose your plan
Payments
supastarter supports multiple payment providers. You can easily switch between them or add your own payment provider.
Multi-tenancy & Organizations
Welcome back!
Your dashboard is ready
Internationalization
To make your app accessible to everyone, internationalization support is included out of the box.
Mails
Coming with multiple mail provider integrations and ready-to-use email templates, you can easily create and send emails to your customers.
GET /api/users/{id}API
The backend is based on Hono.js. You can easily extend the API, add new endpoints, manage permissions and more. The API is fully typed and can be easily reused for mobile apps or a customer API.
AI coding agents support
Supastarter was extremely easy to get set up and deployed. I had a working project in just a few minutes!
Thank you Jonathan 🫡, @supastarter definitely saved us a couple of weeks of bootstrapping the new website!
View project →
I'm very happy with this Next.js boilerplate! The codebase is well-structured and secure, making it a solid foundation for my app. Highly recommend it!
View project →
We're a product development studio, and supastarter is the starting point for many of our SaaS projects. It saves us a ton of time so we can focus on what actually matters: building great products.
View project →
When we first set out to build Spyglasses we knew we needed an MVP before we even considered fundraising. That led us to researching starter kits. We looked at a dozen before settling on Supastarter. It had all the features we needed plus strong Cursor integration, which was critical to us. Thanks to Supastarter we saved 7+ months on our development estimates and even managed to pull some nice-to-haves into our initial launch.
View project →
I am a super happy customer, 10/10 recommend
View project →
As someone experienced with backend development but with limited frontend experience, I knew from the beginning that I would need to use a starter kit. There were a few options, and I decided to go with supastarter. It turned out to be the right call. Supastarter + AI coding + some common sense and guidance -> the project was shipped much faster than I anticipated. I would definitely use it again and not build things like auth, org and user management, and many other things all SaaS businesses need from scratch. Highly recommended!
View project →
The code is excellent and perfect for building complex apps, but what really sets supastarter apart is the support. Every time I needed help, I got a response incredibly fast. This kind of support makes all the difference when building serious projects.
View project →
Supastarter is awesome! I can build my MVP with confidence and my team is happy with the development experience. Service support is excellent! This is the first time I've seen a PPP applied not from a course. Very helpful for indie hackers. Highly recommend!
I compared many SaaS boilerplates before choosing Supastarter, and it truly didn't disappoint. I launched two SaaS products quickly and smoothly, and I'm now recommending Supastarter to friends who want to start their own SaaS projects!
View project →
As an experienced developer and an indie hacker, I prioritize speed when shipping products. After trying out Supastarter, I was genuinely impressed! Its built-in features allowed me to launch my latest product in just a few days—without getting bogged down by boilerplate. Supastarter will definitely be my go-to for future launches!
View project →
I've stumbled upon the most cutting-edge SaaS starter I've ever encountered - it's not just about the polished visuals, but the entire technical foundation is built on modern best practices and tools, making it a true game-changer for anyone looking to launch a SaaS product.
I used @supastarter to kickstart the development of my SaaS, uppybe.com, and it has been an absolute game-changer. It saved me countless hours, allowing me to focus on what truly matters—building my business. @jonathan_wilke has created something invaluable. I highly recommend @supastarter!
Choosing Supastarter was one of the best decisions I made for launching my website, http://domainscore.ai. The template is incredibly well-designed and easy to customize, allowing me to get my site up and running in no time. The built-in features and integrations saved me hours of development work, and the end result is a polished, professional site that has already attracted over 2,000 UVs within its first week. The support from the Supastarter team has been outstanding, and I truly appreciate their attention to detail and commitment to helping creators succeed. The fact that Supastarter's official Twitter account even gave us a shoutout speaks volumes about their dedication to their users. I highly recommend Supastarter to anyone looking to launch a high-quality website quickly and efficiently.
View project →
I built the entire backend of my product, Phew AI Tab, using Supastarter, including the user system and payments and other api. Initially, I used Lemonsqueezy but switched to Stripe for specific reasons later on. I can't imagine how much time it would have taken without Supastarter; it only took a few days. What impressed me the most was the tech support from Supastarter. Even for issues not directly related to Supastarter, Jonathan provided timely and professional responses, which was a huge help and a great learning experience. Supastarter has grown even more powerful since I first used it. I highly recommend it to everyone starting their business, even up to a medium-sized team, as its comprehensive system can fully support growth. I'm so glad I chose Supastarter and I'm thankful for the team's support.
View project →
It really saved me a lot of time, I don't know how long it would have taken if I hadn't had supastarter. It's an amazing project, I loved the clean architecture and easy to take off and put on whatever you need, excellent job!
This supastarter has change my life of developer. With my CTO we are launching a startup and this boilerplate has really accelerate the development. As a developer of 10 years experience, I see that this has been built based on strong knowledge of the development covering all aspects, infrastructure, backend frontend with letting always the easiest way to customize. I would recommend it at 100% to a friend :) Well done Jonathan !
Grabbed my copy of the most supadupa #Nextjs #boilerplate back in December. The pace of releases and DX improvements is crazy. @jonathan_wilke gets it. After an exhaustive review this is the only #production ready #starter I found.
I'm using @supastarter by @jonathan_wilke ITS REALLY AMAZING 🔥
View project →
I recently encountered a minor issue in a piece of software I was using, which prompted me to report the problem on Discord. To my surprise and delight, the response from the development team was incredibly swift. Within just 10 minutes, not only had they addressed my concern, but they also committed the fix to GitHub. I was thoroughly impressed by the speed and efficiency of the team's action. It's rare to receive such prompt and effective support. This experience has certainly raised my expectations for customer service in the tech industry. Kudos to the team for their exemplary service!
Supastarter is truly an exceptional startup template! It boasts an impressive structure and exudes professionalism right from the start. The authentication options provided are top-notch, seamlessly integrated into the system. Additionally, the databases and other components are designed with efficiency and effectiveness in mind. The thoughtful consideration for serverless solutions is evident, showcasing a forward-thinking approach to modern development challenges. I adore the layout and highly recommend it as a startup template to others. It has saved me a tremendous amount of initial time in my project, proving to be an invaluable asset.
Supastarter has helped me launch a new product in record time - it gives you everything you need to get up and running quickly, and provides a framework to work on top of. Easily the best investment I've made in my SaaS product. Well done!
View project →
If I would need to start a newSaaS from scratch, I would definitely choose supastarter for it. I love the provided tools & libraries, the documentation is good and you get help in its Discord community.
Jonathan's Supastarter has taught me a lot. Great separation of concerns and code quality here. Learning from an actual codebase is far superior to watching the best video course ever.
Supastarter helped a ton with getting my project off the ground! You get authentication, prisma db connections, migrations, marketing and saas folders for your app, the damn complex payment subscription hooks setup. It's gonna save you weeks of having to slouch through your side project because Stripe hook doesn't work / connecting your data to your users is hard. At this price, Supastarter is unbeatable in helping you cut down on development time and speed 🚀
Supastarter was exactly what I was looking for to help spring board my first react SaaS web app and at a reasonable price point. The pre-built landing page, signup, database, light/dark theming setup gave me a guideline of good practices to follow and allowed me to get right to prototyping my ideas.
View project →
Supastarter is just awesome! It helped me go from scratch to authentication and payments integrated in minutes. Jonathan (the founder) is excellent and ready to support you every step of the way! I don't think there's a better way to kickstart your next SaaS!
Supastarter is truly a blessing for developers! It greatly simplifies the project creation process, helping us save a whole week of development time. This solution is not only efficient but also very suitable for team collaboration, allowing us to focus more on innovation and bringing our ideas to life.
View project →
If you are in the market for a boilerplate for your next web-based project, you should check out @supastarter. I bought it, and it checks out after I reviewed the code a bit. I'm looking forward to using it for all of my web-based side projects going forward.
One-time purchase. Lifetime access.
No subscriptions. No recurring fees. Pick the plan that fits your team and start building today.
Solo
Perfect for Indie Hackers.
- 1 Developer Seat (GitHub access)
- Unlimited Personal Projects (Commercial use allowed)
- Full SaaS stack: Auth, Payments, Organizations, API, Admin UI, Email, i18n, Background Jobs, Storage & more
- Marketing features: Blog, Landing page, SEO, Analytics
- Lifetime Updates
Startup
Build faster as a team.
- Up to 5 Developer Seats
- Unlimited Team Projects
- 30-min Architecture Consult (Onboarding Call)
- Priority Support
- Everything in Solo
Agency
The ultimate SaaS factory.
- Up to 10 Developer Seats
- Unlimited Client Projects
- 30-min Architecture Consult (Onboarding Call)
- White-label potential
- Everything in Startup
- Private Discord support channel
Expert architecture consulting. 60 minutes, 1-on-1.
Available for new and existing supastarter customers — get dedicated expert guidance on setup, architecture, and technical decisions for your project.
Technical deep-dive
Discuss tech stack decisions, best practices, and supastarter specifics — tailored to your project.
Guided project setup
Get your supastarter project configured correctly from day one with hands-on expert guidance.
Architecture planning
Design a scalable application structure with an architecture that fits your specific use case.
Trusted by 1253 developers & founders around the globe
Read what customers love about supastarter and how it helped them to launch their product.
Supastarter was extremely easy to get set up and deployed. I had a working project in just a few minutes!
Thank you Jonathan 🫡, @supastarter definitely saved us a couple of weeks of bootstrapping the new website!
View projectFantastic product packed with tons of features. Reading through the docs I can see the huge amount of work and love that was put into this. Not a common sight these days!
The SaaS starter template for Next.js - So cool to learn about @supastarter from @jonathan_wilke on the most recent episode of @compressedfm
I'm very happy with this Next.js boilerplate! The codebase is well-structured and secure, making it a solid foundation for my app. Highly recommend it!
View projectWe're a product development studio, and supastarter is the starting point for many of our SaaS projects. It saves us a ton of time so we can focus on what actually matters: building great products.
View projectWhen we first set out to build Spyglasses we knew we needed an MVP before we even considered fundraising. That led us to researching starter kits. We looked at a dozen before settling on Supastarter. It had all the features we needed plus strong Cursor integration, which was critical to us. Thanks to Supastarter we saved 7+ months on our development estimates and even managed to pull some nice-to-haves into our initial launch.
View projectAs someone experienced with backend development but with limited frontend experience, I knew from the beginning that I would need to use a starter kit. There were a few options, and I decided to go with supastarter. It turned out to be the right call. Supastarter + AI coding + some common sense and guidance -> the project was shipped much faster than I anticipated. I would definitely use it again and not build things like auth, org and user management, and many other things all SaaS businesses need from scratch. Highly recommended!
View projectThe code is excellent and perfect for building complex apps, but what really sets supastarter apart is the support. Every time I needed help, I got a response incredibly fast. This kind of support makes all the difference when building serious projects.
View projectKudos to @jonathan_wilke for building an awesome SaaS starter kit 🚀🚀🚀
Supastarter is awesome! I can build my MVP with confidence and my team is happy with the development experience. Service support is excellent! This is the first time I've seen a PPP applied not from a course. Very helpful for indie hackers. Highly recommend!
Just chose @supastarter as nextjs/supabase boilerplate for my next health/biohacking SaaS over other alternatives. Why ? - Extensive documentation, while keeping things simple and down to earth - Clean UI made directly with Radix - ORM (Prisma)
@supastarter has established itself as one of the premier boilerplates for Indie Hackers and Micro-SaaS builders. Their reputation speaks for itself, and we couldn't be more thrilled about this collaboration! 🍦🫶
This is the ultimate Starter kit made by a real expert. It has everything you need to launch quick!
I compared many SaaS boilerplates before choosing Supastarter, and it truly didn't disappoint. I launched two SaaS products quickly and smoothly, and I'm now recommending Supastarter to friends who want to start their own SaaS projects!
View projectWow this SaaS starter kit is really a game changer, and time saver, it helps building your next product SaaS much faster than before, we need more products like this, but this is the best one here 🔥 thanks for building supastarter 🙏
Well made, beautiful design, many useful integrations. Saves hours of work and headaches. Totally recommended. Great work Jonathan. Supported.
After comparing various starter template products, I can confidently say that Supastarter offers the best value (and arguably the best design!). It would be amazing to see more builders benefit from this product.
This is a fantastic product built around the awesome supabase BaaS. I've spent quite some time playing around with it and it's 100% production ready – the i18n straight out of the box is my favourite feature as a European :) @jonathan_wilke2 is killing it! 🙏
As an experienced developer and an indie hacker, I prioritize speed when shipping products. After trying out Supastarter, I was genuinely impressed! Its built-in features allowed me to launch my latest product in just a few days—without getting bogged down by boilerplate. Supastarter will definitely be my go-to for future launches!
View projectI've stumbled upon the most cutting-edge SaaS starter I've ever encountered - it's not just about the polished visuals, but the entire technical foundation is built on modern best practices and tools, making it a true game-changer for anyone looking to launch a SaaS product.
I used @supastarter to kickstart the development of my SaaS, uppybe.com, and it has been an absolute game-changer. It saved me countless hours, allowing me to focus on what truly matters—building my business. @jonathan_wilke has created something invaluable. I highly recommend @supastarter!
Choosing Supastarter was one of the best decisions I made for launching my website, http://domainscore.ai. The template is incredibly well-designed and easy to customize, allowing me to get my site up and running in no time. The built-in features and integrations saved me hours of development work, and the end result is a polished, professional site that has already attracted over 2,000 UVs within its first week. The support from the Supastarter team has been outstanding, and I truly appreciate their attention to detail and commitment to helping creators succeed. The fact that Supastarter's official Twitter account even gave us a shoutout speaks volumes about their dedication to their users. I highly recommend Supastarter to anyone looking to launch a high-quality website quickly and efficiently.
View projectI built the entire backend of my product, Phew AI Tab, using Supastarter, including the user system and payments and other api. Initially, I used Lemonsqueezy but switched to Stripe for specific reasons later on. I can't imagine how much time it would have taken without Supastarter; it only took a few days. What impressed me the most was the tech support from Supastarter. Even for issues not directly related to Supastarter, Jonathan provided timely and professional responses, which was a huge help and a great learning experience. Supastarter has grown even more powerful since I first used it. I highly recommend it to everyone starting their business, even up to a medium-sized team, as its comprehensive system can fully support growth. I'm so glad I chose Supastarter and I'm thankful for the team's support.
View projectIt really saved me a lot of time, I don't know how long it would have taken if I hadn't had supastarter. It's an amazing project, I loved the clean architecture and easy to take off and put on whatever you need, excellent job!
This supastarter has change my life of developer. With my CTO we are launching a startup and this boilerplate has really accelerate the development. As a developer of 10 years experience, I see that this has been built based on strong knowledge of the development covering all aspects, infrastructure, backend frontend with letting always the easiest way to customize. I would recommend it at 100% to a friend :) Well done Jonathan !
Grabbed my copy of the most supadupa #Nextjs #boilerplate back in December. The pace of releases and DX improvements is crazy. @jonathan_wilke gets it. After an exhaustive review this is the only #production ready #starter I found.
I recently encountered a minor issue in a piece of software I was using, which prompted me to report the problem on Discord. To my surprise and delight, the response from the development team was incredibly swift. Within just 10 minutes, not only had they addressed my concern, but they also committed the fix to GitHub. I was thoroughly impressed by the speed and efficiency of the team's action. It's rare to receive such prompt and effective support. This experience has certainly raised my expectations for customer service in the tech industry. Kudos to the team for their exemplary service!
Supastarter is truly an exceptional startup template! It boasts an impressive structure and exudes professionalism right from the start. The authentication options provided are top-notch, seamlessly integrated into the system. Additionally, the databases and other components are designed with efficiency and effectiveness in mind. The thoughtful consideration for serverless solutions is evident, showcasing a forward-thinking approach to modern development challenges. I adore the layout and highly recommend it as a startup template to others. It has saved me a tremendous amount of initial time in my project, proving to be an invaluable asset.
Supastarter has helped me launch a new product in record time - it gives you everything you need to get up and running quickly, and provides a framework to work on top of. Easily the best investment I've made in my SaaS product. Well done!
View projectIf I would need to start a newSaaS from scratch, I would definitely choose supastarter for it. I love the provided tools & libraries, the documentation is good and you get help in its Discord community.
Jonathan's Supastarter has taught me a lot. Great separation of concerns and code quality here. Learning from an actual codebase is far superior to watching the best video course ever.
Supastarter helped a ton with getting my project off the ground! You get authentication, prisma db connections, migrations, marketing and saas folders for your app, the damn complex payment subscription hooks setup. It's gonna save you weeks of having to slouch through your side project because Stripe hook doesn't work / connecting your data to your users is hard. At this price, Supastarter is unbeatable in helping you cut down on development time and speed 🚀
Supastarter was exactly what I was looking for to help spring board my first react SaaS web app and at a reasonable price point. The pre-built landing page, signup, database, light/dark theming setup gave me a guideline of good practices to follow and allowed me to get right to prototyping my ideas.
View projectSupastarter is just awesome! It helped me go from scratch to authentication and payments integrated in minutes. Jonathan (the founder) is excellent and ready to support you every step of the way! I don't think there's a better way to kickstart your next SaaS!
Supastarter is truly a blessing for developers! It greatly simplifies the project creation process, helping us save a whole week of development time. This solution is not only efficient but also very suitable for team collaboration, allowing us to focus more on innovation and bringing our ideas to life.
View projectIf you are in the market for a boilerplate for your next web-based project, you should check out @supastarter. I bought it, and it checks out after I reviewed the code a bit. I'm looking forward to using it for all of my web-based side projects going forward.
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Discover the diverse range of projects and ideas that our 1253 customers have built with supastarter.
