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9 Comments

Which (if any) aws product to host shopify-type SaaS commerce platform?

hey ih -
i'm building a shopify like platform that's vertical specific. i've validated the idea and have a couple customers and am currently preparing to launch. however, i'm having some trouble figuring out the best way to host the application.

i think i'll need an aws type solution but not sure which one (i have basically zero experience in aws).

DISCLAIMER - if there is an easier or quicker way to do this for a mvp type product, please let me know. or if i'm thinking about this in an inaccurate way.

quick description of what i need the site to do:

  • each customer should be able to stand up a responsive site (either on my domain or their own custom domain)
  • each customer will need database resources for product data, orders, etc.
  • app will need authentication for customers
  • payments are currently enabled by stripe

right now i've built the following:

  • node server w/ rest api for the product
  • front end storefront in react.js that calls data from node sever (need to eventually change front end into a customizable templates to be stood up/launched by new customers)
  • app in react native for the store owner that calls node server api to view orders, revenue, etc

right now from poking around the site - aws amplify looks like it might be a good way. cloud formation also looks like it'll fit (but not sure ? ). i've seen some stuff about aws terraform but that seems deprecated?
cognito looks like it'll help for authentication

  1. 2

    Off topic but I am building a product just like yours haha. What are the chances, especially considering how much of a niche "genre" it is
    Good luck and maybe one day we could work together haha 👍

    1. 2

      Best of luck to you!! If you run into problems during development feel free to reach out if you think I can help! If your company is on IH i'd love to check it out as well. I haven't posted mine on IH yet (still deciding on name/domain name)

  2. 2

    If you have zero experience with AWS it seems like an odd choice to deploy your first project to it.

    I would recommend deploying to a service where infrastructure decisions are made for you, so all you have to do is worry about building the app.

    Google for “platform as a service”. Personally I deploy to Heroku. You can definitely push your Node app to Heroku.

    1. 1

      Thank you for the feedback!! I'm looking at PaaS' and am going through Heroku documentation as we speak. I've used Heroku for static sites in the past.

      I guess where I'm confused is how the 'business logic' will work. I can host my website front end on Heroku, however when customers sign up can Heroku stand up new assets (websites/data) for those customers? This is the Shopify type functionality I'm trying to figure out.

      1. 2

        The technical term for what you are describing (shopify-like functionality) is “multi tenancy”. It’s absolutely possible on something like Heroku.

        There’s also quite a few ways you can implement something like this so I think you’re starting at the wrong end of this process. You need to figure out how you want to build this first, then select the best platform for the job. Not the other way around.

        I would google “node multi tenancy” and do a bit more research on what packages / platforms / DB solutions people are using for this in 2020.

        1. 1

          I will start there!! Thank you!!

          1. 2

            There's the other Indie Hacker (@alexandromg) who's building some sort of multi-tenancy something something called NetcoreSaas. I'll leave it to him to explain his value prop but it sounded like some sort of a match.

            If you plan to use AWS SES for emailing - cheap, scalable - I'd love for you to check out my product https://zeer0.com. I'm building it specifically for the kind of team which wants to use AWS but would love to abstract some of the less pretty features from non-tech folks.

            1. 2

              Thanks for the comment. I'll check out NetcoreSaaS. From first glance it looks super useful although it doesn't work w/ my current stack (React and a noSQL database). But it does seem to automate the multi-tenant db issue I'm trying to work through. Awesome product from @alexandromg

              P.S. Zeero's landing page looks great! I'll definitely look into it if I need an emailing solution from AWS.

              1. 1

                Thank you @MeansNoWaaris. I actually saw this post but I saw "React" and "Node", basically the opposite of what I've implemented "VueJS" and "NET Core". I was thinking in porting the codebase into React (frontend) or Node (backend) but I decided to implement new features in the current stack, such as the eCommerce module you want to build. @idodekerobo Maybe you could use my frontend, which is divided into marketing, app and admin side, although it's on VueJS 🙊🙊

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