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57 Comments

What's your indie stack for SaaS?

Hey everyone-

Getting back into launching some indie projects (many of which are using AI under the hood) so thought I'd research all the latest tech to help reduce dev time. Here are some of my favorites:

  1. Fastgen

I have been using Fastgen to quickly build scalable APIs and Cron Jobs. It abstracts away a lot of the complexity of the backend and enables me to think about the business logic.

It also has out-of-the-box support for hitting Open AI's chatGPT API.

  1. Subframe
    I went from zero to having built out my entire component library and product UI in under an hour. Suuuper useful if you want beautiful looking component library but can't afford to hire a designer.

Also- if you're building any sort of chatbot, there's a great Messaging page template to help you get started.

  1. Rainfall QA
    I've never been one to write many tests but Rainfall has a pretty rad no-code interface for spinning up end-to-end tests. It took me just a few minutes to create my first one and then a couple hours to build a whole suite that runs on a weekly basis.

  2. Tailwind UI
    If you're using Tailwind, there are a lot of great templates here.

What else is out there that you'd recommend?

on June 22, 2023
  1. 5

    I know it’s cringe but I do all my development on the Microsoft stack 😬. I use .net for APIs and Blazor for the frontend. I can just use c# everywhere. 🤘

    1. 3

      Same here! It's nice that .NET now runs on pretty much any OS. I host all my apps on Digital Ocean Ubuntu droplets.

      I actually created an open source framework on top of Blazor Server. If your interested, check it out - https://blazorspark.com/docs/introduction/

      1. 1

        Looks great! I will give it whirl for my next project!

    2. 2

      Microsoft tech stack is amazing, people love to hate on early 2000's .NET.

      I use .NET and am very, very proud of it.

    3. 1

      Can I dm you? I think I got an interesting idea for an AI powered SaaS after a deep market research.

    4. 1

      valid stack. use what your most comfortable with, even if its microsoft lol

    5. 1

      This comment was deleted 2 years ago.

  2. 3

    @wolferber nice list! didn't know about fastgen & subframe.

    I am building a SAAS product, for which i am using this tech stack -

    1. NextJS, Tailwind & shadcn/ui - for building frontend
    2. React Query - for client side data fetching
    3. Express, MongoDB & Typescript - for bulding REST API

    Everything is open source.

    1. 1

      I considered shadcn given that I'm using the new app directory but after doing a demo with subframe, I decided to give it a shot. Have been thoroughly impressed so far!

    2. 0

      Can I dm you? I think I got an interesting idea for an AI powered SaaS after a deep market research. My Discord id: Vector#4461

      1. 1

        Hey Sure, will connect. Here is my user name on discord: brijdi

        1. 4

          this dudes spamming his "ai powered saas" idea everywhere b careful

        2. -1

          This comment has been voted down. Click to show.

  3. 2

    Hey, thanks for the list. I'm new to the community and would consider myself as a Jr dev. Do you have any tips or resources about how to structure my application to allow access to features based on being a free user or subscriber to a paid plan?

    1. 2

      You could use this template with has support for Stripe billing and subscriptions out of the box!
      https://github.com/vercel/nextjs-subscription-payments

      1. 1

        Thank you I will look into this.

      2. -1

        This comment has been voted down. Click to show.

  4. 2

    Hey @wolferber thanks for sharing the above! I've not heard of Fastgen or Rainfall QA before - I'll have to try them out.

    For my project TinySurvey I'm using the following stack:

    1. NextJS. This has become my go to dev framework for all of my projects. It handles both the front end and the API. It also works seamlessly with Vercel which is what I'm using to host it.

    2. Supabase. It has Postgres and auth out of the box and a library that works well with NextJS.

    3. Tailwind. An absolute game changer. It's very rare I use standard CSS since I've started using Tailwind.

    1. 1

      +1 on Supabase + next.js -> this is now my go-to starter kit for new SaaS applications. Love that supabase comes out of the box with CRUD APIs.

      I also recommend using this template that Vercel put together (using Stripe + Supbase + Next.js + tailwind under the hood):
      https://github.com/vercel/nextjs-subscription-payments

  5. 1
    • Electron app frontend/single page app UI: VueJS
    • Product site/landing page: Nuxt (VueJS)
    • REST API: .NET Web API
    • Database: SQL Server
    • Authentication: Auth0
    • All hosting: Azure
    • UI styling: Tailwind CSS + DevExtreme components
  6. 1

    VueJS with TailwindCSS
    Hasura backend
    AWS Hosted

  7. 1
    • Docker
    • Ruby on Rails + JavaScript/TypeScript
    • AWS CDK (infrastructure as code)
    • AWS for everything else: database, ECS, redis, logs, etc
  8. 1

    We use the following at Tidyrise.com

    UI: Nextjs with Tailwindcss
    Backend/APIs: Golang
    Hosting: UI on Vercel
    Backend on Render
    Database: AWS
    Authentication: Auth0
    Chat: Crisp

  9. 1

    Maybe I’m behind the times but:

    • React Native Web w/ Expo (Frontend)
    • Nest.js w/ Postgres (Backend)
    • Cognito (Auth)
    • GPT 3.5 (AI)
    • Dokku (Deployment)
    • AWS S3 (Cloud)

    All of my apps are on a single Dokku instance, so it’s possible scaling could become a challenge.

    I like to develop my apps for Web and Native at the same time, and I prefer code-based config over GUI.

  10. 1

    We use vercel and supabase

  11. 1

    I completely rebuilt Turbolink.io with SvelteKit, Supabase, and Vercel. The whole thing works like magic! I can deploy new versions in one click, and the stack took YEARS off development time.

  12. 1

    The very first product I used from Indie Hackers is named: Logology ( an AI logo generator) I was really impressed.

    But for UI Kits or web design templates, I use UIHUT for a long time. And surprisingly, recently they launched their UIHUT B2B Market (this is really cool!!) and I loved it. Now I can resell their 23000+ resources and also I use them myself.

    If you sell themes, website builders, and plugins, or you have a company where you sell design templates you can visit their website (https://uihut.com/b2b-design).

    As I know right now they just looking for some early users to offer a lifetime deal in a surprising cost.

  13. 1

    Next.js (React), MUI (Component), Postmark (email), AWS (infra), appwrite (backend) for our dev stack. We actually wasted almost a month trying out the "latest tech". Not recommended 😑

  14. 1

    I recently started using https://www.airplane.dev/ for automated and scheduled tasks that hit my API endpoints and would recommend, really simple UI and I don't have to worry about building scheduled tasks in Django anymore

    For Frontend Chakra UI (https://chakra-ui.com/) is super fast for getting good-looking components up-and-running - in fact, I switched to them after Tailwind (not to say I'll probably switch back when I want more opinionated UI but the gains I get from Chakra coupled with it's speed made it a no-brainer)

    Frontend: Next JS / React / TypeScript
    Backend: Django / DRF
    DB: PostGreSQL

  15. 1

    For my first indie product, I'd used Flask + Bootstrap, with a bit of jQuery, but that was a long time back now.

    Then I started getting into fullstack JS dev, so I've used the following:

    • NextJS for the backend and SSR
    • React frontend
    • Firebase for user auth
    • MongoDB as a database (firestore has limitations you run into pretty quickly, and I've noticed it taking 10-20x longer for even very simple queries. I gained a 10x speedup to an app just by removing firestore. Mongo has a serverless option that charges based on usage). Also I try to avoid SQL databases as they complicate things in my opinion, with the migrations and all, you need to be thoughtful from day one.
    • TailwindCSS (and now TailwindUI) for the frontend design
    • DigitalOcean App Platform or Vercel for hosting - Vercel isn't suitable for backends that need to be running 24x7, so I like DO App Platform. It's very simple like Heroku used to be.

    I also really love Rails, it's got a lot of simplicity and if you know Rails you can churn out features rapidly. In JS world, you have to figure out so many different things, like auth, DB choice, frameworks, form management libraries, APIs, JWT auth, Rails is a breath of fresh air in comparison, so I would love to use Rails on future projects where it makes sense.

    As for no-code platforms, I tried Bubble and it just seemed pretty complicated for me. I think if you're not a dev, it's a great option, but as a dev, I feel like I could get things done way faster with actual code written by me, and Bubble has a pretty hefty fee, you don't own the code.

    Bubble apps can only be run on the Bubble platform; there's no way of exporting your application as code. If you decide to move off the Bubble platform, you'll have to rebuild the application logic

    This is kind of a dealbreaker for me.

  16. 1

    Great insights. Thanks. Personally I run NGINX, MongoDB, with either Tailwind or Bootstrap (I know, I know, but it gives me the flexibility I need and know my way around) on top I usually run Klein.php Router or another micro-routing framework.

  17. 1

    Thanks for sharing your stack. I did not know about Rainfall QA. Trying it out and so far it looks like the thing I was looking for. My Stack is Laravel with Livewire, MariaDB and Nginx. Nothing fancy.

  18. 1

    In my opinion in No-Code Stack or Half No-Code Has Development Limitation. After a stage you can't expand it properly. So, For Long term use BEST STACK and for short term use release'able stack

  19. 1

    I’m I the only one using TALL stack? I just use what I know and what works. I also use Pipedream (Node) to create advanced pipelines with a lot of dependent stept where different APIs (including my own) are called. It’s like Zapier for devs. Waiting patiently for them to add Git versioning for workflows (components can be versioned).

  20. 1

    I built a flexible multi-tenant business application platform called PrestoFox. I have built 5+ SaaS Products using it.

    I use Symfony (PHP) for backend and make use of GraphQL API. For storage I use MySql and Redis DB. An for Frontend I make use of Quasar Framework ( Vue JS).

    One can build PWA, Web App, iOS app, Android app, desktop app, browser plugin using single code base.

    To know more about the capabilities here : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K7AnRgHtX20hRaQh0-27fBxYRm2RPDeY/view?usp=sharing

  21. 1

    Nice! That's a neat list.

  22. 1

    Nextjs
    Tailwind css
    PostgreSql on railway
    Prisma as orm
    Backend express js but I moved recently two services to dotnet and I'm general happy about the minimal api approach something to consider in near future.

  23. 1

    2 java spring backends
    React fe
    Js fe
    Keycloak
    Nomad
    Patroni with postgres
    Jenkins for jobs

    1. 0

      Can I dm you? I think I got an interesting idea for an AI powered SaaS after a deep market research.

  24. 1
    • Golang for backend (including data consumption pipeline + microservices)
    • VueJS/Quasar (on top of Typescript) for frontend
    • Postgresql (with a dash of PostGIS)
    • RabbitMQ for data pipeline messaging

    I am also about to utilise Redis for some intermittent caching.

    My SaaS isn't deployed yet, but I am building everything with DigitalOcean in mind, hopefully by utilising Docker with droplets.

  25. 1

    TailwindUI is awesome, I'm using in my SaaS as well, it has an insane ROI.

    For IntelliSyncAI, my project, I'm using:

    • Supabase for backend.
    • NextJS 13 for frontend.
    • Tailwind for styling.
    • Stripe for payments.
    • Turborepo to manage my monorepo.
    • Github Actions for CI/CD.
    • It is not on production yet, but I will deploy it on vercel.
    1. 1

      Supabase + nextjs + tailwind + stripe is exactly my stack lol. I think this is becoming the standard for many

      1. 1

        Yeah, this is a very powerful stack and I'm already super productive with it. On top of that, I'm using turborepo, so I'm creating all my side projects on the same repo, sharing as many code as possible.

    2. 1

      Can I dm you? I think I got an interesting idea for an AI powered SaaS after a deep market research.

      1. 1

        Sure, would love to discuss.

        1. 1

          Send me a request on Discord: Vector#4461

  26. 1

    I use Ruby on Rails and Javascript!

    1. 0

      Can I dm you? I think I got an interesting idea for an AI powered SaaS after a deep market research.

      1. 1

        Sure, would love to discuss.

  27. 1

    Building an indie stack allows for flexibility, customization, and the ability to cater to specific needs. From open-source frameworks to cloud services and API integrations, the possibilities are endless. Share your indie stack with us and let's celebrate the creativity and resourcefulness of the indie SaaS community

  28. 1

    Frontend: React and NextJS
    Backend: Spring Boot (Java) + Aurora (RDB)

    I'm not sure I've ever seen Spring mentioned here on IH but for what we're building a production-grade statically typed framework with a great selection of libraries was key.

    1. 0

      Can I dm you? I think I got an interesting idea for an AI powered SaaS after a deep market research. My Discord id: Vector#4461

  29. 1

    I just launched SilentFlip.com and my stack is what I know best:
    Frontend - Astro, TailwindCSS
    Backend - NodeJS, SQLite, fly.io

    I'd like to learn some other stack, maybe Elixir or Go, but I know Node very well, and Typescript make it less annoying that it is, so I'm happy with it!

    1. 1

      Fly.io looks super neat! I've been using Vercel edge functions for my latest project.

      To reduce context switching, I try to stick with typescript for my entire stack. Currently using a Vercel mono repo for FE + backend with edge functions.

      1. 1

        I use vercel for my blog https://www.yieldcode.blog and I really like it! It's a static website, so vercel is nice.

        I just feel that fly.io is more geared towards general backend, while vercel is better for their own NextJS. But I like both, just for different purposes.

        1. 0

          Can I dm you? I think I got an interesting idea for an AI powered SaaS after a deep market research.

          1. 1

            I don’t do AI startups. But I’m willing to connect with other solopreneurs and indie hackers, so feel free to reach out if you want to connect

  30. 1

    This comment was deleted 9 months ago.

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