What's your indie stack for SaaS?

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. 🤘

@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.

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?

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.

• 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

VueJS with TailwindCSS
Hasura backend
AWS Hosted

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

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

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.

We use vercel and supabase

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.

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.

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 😑

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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).

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

Nice! That's a neat list.

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.

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

• 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.

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.

I use Ruby on Rails and Javascript!

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

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.

Hey! I recently published a post where I describe the tech stack of Secutils.dev - https://www.indiehackers.com/post/building-secutils-dev-technology-stack-overview-c499eea445 and https://www.indiehackers.com/post/building-secutils-dev-deployment-overview-of-micro-cluster-for-micro-saas-4eb532e4d0

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!