Pick ixartz if: You want a free, MIT-licensed starting point with a modern stack (Next.js 16, Tailwind v4, Clerk, Drizzle) You're building B2C — individual users, no teams Open-source contribution or public repository is important You want to avoid a subscription and control your own auth via Clerk's managed service Pick ShipFast if: Solo founder building B2C (apps for individual users, not companies) Speed to first paying user is the top priority You want the largest community (7,500+ Discord)

Next.js SaaS Boilerplates 2026: Top 5 Compared

TL;DR

Five Next.js SaaS boilerplates, five different philosophies. ixartz SaaS-Boilerplate is the best free option (MIT licensed, Clerk + Drizzle, Next.js 16). ShipFast ($199) is the fastest to launch for solo founders. Supastarter ($299) is Supabase-native with the deepest multi-tenancy. Makerkit (~$299/year) has the best code architecture and a plugin system. Vercel next-saas-starter is free and minimal — best for learning, not production. Match the boilerplate to your target buyer: B2C solo? ShipFast. B2B teams? Supastarter or Makerkit. Open budget? ixartz.

Feature Matrix

	ixartz	Supastarter	Makerkit	ShipFast	Vercel Starter
Price	Free (Pro ~$99)	$299 one-time	~$299/year	$199 one-time	Free
Open Source	Yes (MIT)	No	No	No	Yes (MIT)
Next.js 16	Yes	No (v15)	No (v15)	No (v15)	No (v15)
Auth	Clerk	better-auth	Supabase Auth	NextAuth v5	Auth.js
Payments	Stripe	Stripe + Lemon Squeezy	Stripe + Lemon Squeezy + Paddle	Stripe + Lemon Squeezy	Stripe
Multi-tenancy	No	Yes (orgs + RBAC)	Yes (orgs + roles)	No	No
Database	Drizzle + PostgreSQL	Supabase (Postgres)	Supabase or Firebase	MongoDB or Supabase	PostgreSQL (Drizzle)
Email provider	Resend	Resend	Nodemailer or Resend	Resend	Resend
Admin panel	No	Yes	Yes	No	No
i18n	No	Yes (10+ languages)	Yes (12+ languages)	No	No
TypeScript	Yes (strict)	Yes	Yes (strict)	Yes	Yes
Tailwind v4	Yes	No (v3)	No (v3)	No (v3)	No (v3)
shadcn/ui	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Testing	Vitest	No	Vitest + Playwright	No	No

Developer Experience

ixartz SaaS-Boilerplate — Free, Modern Stack

ixartz's boilerplate stands out as the only one in this comparison running Next.js 16 and Tailwind v4. The MIT license means you can use it freely for commercial projects, and the paid Pro tier (~$99 lifetime) adds a landing page, additional components, and priority support. With 2,000+ GitHub stars, it's the most widely-used open source Next.js SaaS starter.

The combination of Clerk (managed auth) and Drizzle ORM is modern and production-ready. Clerk handles the auth complexity entirely — no session management, no OAuth callback routes to write — and Drizzle gives you type-safe SQL with excellent TypeScript inference. The tradeoff: Clerk has a free tier but costs money at scale (~$25/month per 1,000 MAUs above the free tier), so factor that into your pricing model.

// ixartz auth middleware — Clerk makes this trivial:
import { clerkMiddleware, createRouteMatcher } from '@clerk/nextjs/server';

const isProtectedRoute = createRouteMatcher(['/dashboard(.*)', '/api/(.*)']);

export default clerkMiddleware((auth, req) => {
  if (isProtectedRoute(req)) auth().protect();
});

The lack of multi-tenancy is the biggest limitation. ixartz is built for single-user SaaS (B2C) — one user, one account. If your product needs organizations or teams from day one, you're building that yourself.

Getting started:

git clone https://github.com/ixartz/SaaS-Boilerplate.git my-app
cd my-app && npm install
cp .env.example .env.local
# Add Clerk keys, database URL, Stripe keys
npm run dev

Supastarter — Supabase-Native B2B

Supastarter's defining feature is its Supabase integration depth. Row-level security policies are pre-written for every table, storage buckets are configured, and the organization model maps directly to Supabase's auth primitives. With ~3,000 purchases and active Discord support, it has a proven install base.

The switch to better-auth (away from Supabase Auth's direct SDK) in recent versions gives Supastarter more flexibility — you get email/password, magic link, OAuth, and OTP all configured. The i18n system covers 10+ languages out of the box using next-intl, which matters for products targeting non-English markets from launch.

// Supastarter organization invite — RLS enforced at DB level:
'use server';
export async function inviteMember(formData: FormData) {
  const session = await auth.getSession();
  const orgId = formData.get('organizationId') as string;

  // Permission check via better-auth + application layer:
  await requireOrgPermission(session.user.id, orgId, 'invite_members');

  await resend.emails.send({
    from: 'noreply@yourdomain.com',
    to: formData.get('email') as string,
    subject: 'You have been invited',
    react: InvitationEmail({ orgId, inviterName: session.user.name }),
  });
}

Multi-tenancy ships fully wired: create organization, invite members, assign roles (owner, admin, member), per-seat billing via Stripe, and the admin dashboard shows all orgs and users. You're not building any of that — it's there on day one.

One limitation worth noting: Supastarter is currently on Next.js 15 and Tailwind v3. If staying on the absolute latest versions is important, this matters.

Makerkit — Plugin Architecture and Code Quality

Makerkit is the only subscription-priced option here (~$299/year), which creates a different long-term cost structure. The trade-off is continuous updates — when Next.js or Supabase ships breaking changes, Makerkit updates the core and you pull changes into your project without needing to re-purchase.

The plugin system is what separates Makerkit architecturally. The core kit is deliberately lean; features like an AI chatbot, feature roadmap voting, or analytics dashboards are added as plugins. This means your custom code never conflicts with upstream Makerkit updates — plugins live in their own namespace.

# Makerkit plugin installation:
npx makerkit plugin:install @makerkit/plugin-ai-chatbot
npx makerkit plugin:install @makerkit/plugin-roadmap

Code quality is the best in this comparison. Strict TypeScript, a service layer with proper separation of concerns, and real Vitest + Playwright tests that run and pass. If you're a team where code review and maintainability matter, Makerkit's architecture scales better than any other option here.

The subscription pricing deserves consideration. At ~$299/year, you're paying ~$1,500 over five years versus a $299 one-time purchase. For a product generating revenue, that's reasonable. For a bootstrapped idea that might not survive six months, less so.

ShipFast — Fastest to First User

ShipFast ($199) remains the most popular paid boilerplate for solo founders. Marc Lou's direct involvement in the Discord community (7,500+ members) is a genuine advantage — question answered in hours, not days. The code itself reflects real-world experience from someone who has shipped dozens of products.

ShipFast's philosophy is deliberate minimalism. It does auth, payments, email, and SEO without adding enterprise features that most solo-founder products never use. The configuration is centralized in a single config.ts, which new developers can read in 10 minutes and understand the full system.

// ShipFast config.ts — everything in one readable file:
export const config = {
  appName: 'YourSaaS',
  domainName: 'yoursaas.com',
  stripe: {
    plans: [
      { name: 'Starter', priceId: process.env.STRIPE_MONTHLY_PRICE_ID!, price: 9, isFeatured: false },
      { name: 'Pro', priceId: process.env.STRIPE_PRO_PRICE_ID!, price: 29, isFeatured: true },
    ],
  },
  mailgun: { subdomain: 'mg', fromNoReply: 'noreply@yoursaas.com' },
  auth: { loginUrl: '/api/auth/signin', callbackUrl: '/dashboard' },
};

The ceiling: ShipFast has no multi-tenancy, no admin panel, and no role-based permissions. When your product needs any of those things, you're building them on top of a codebase that wasn't designed for them. Many founders end up migrating to Makerkit or Supastarter once they hit that ceiling.

Vercel next-saas-starter — Free, Minimal, Official

The Vercel starter is maintained by the Next.js team, which means it tracks framework changes reliably. It's the simplest option: Auth.js (formerly NextAuth), Stripe subscriptions, and a basic dashboard. No multi-tenancy, no admin panel, no i18n.

It's better suited for learning Next.js SaaS patterns or as a reference implementation than as a production foundation. The Vercel starter intentionally stays minimal — adding multi-tenancy or an admin panel means you're essentially writing a boilerplate from scratch on top of it.

Production Readiness

Security and RLS

Multi-tenancy correctness is the most security-critical part of a B2B SaaS. The wrong query can leak one customer's data to another. Here's where each option stands:

Supastarter: RLS policies are pre-written for every table. Organization membership controls read/write access at the database level — application code mistakes can't leak data because the DB rejects the query.

Makerkit: Core tables have RLS configured. The service layer enforces organization scoping in application code. Good, but not as tight as Supastarter's blanket coverage.

ShipFast: No multi-tenancy, no RLS concerns — but you add both if your product eventually needs them.

ixartz: No multi-tenancy. Clerk handles auth security; database RLS is your responsibility.

Vercel Starter: No multi-tenancy, minimal security patterns beyond auth middleware.

Testing Coverage

	Has Tests	Test Types	Can Run Out of Box
ixartz	Yes	Vitest (unit)	Yes
Supastarter	No	—	—
Makerkit	Yes	Vitest + Playwright	Yes
ShipFast	No	—	—
Vercel Starter	No	—	—

Only Makerkit ships with end-to-end tests configured. ixartz includes Vitest for unit tests. ShipFast and Supastarter ship without tests — you're adding your own test infrastructure from zero.

Deployment and Infrastructure

All five are optimized for Vercel. Supabase-based options (Supastarter, Makerkit) work on Vercel Edge Functions with the @supabase/ssr package. ixartz's Drizzle setup can point at any PostgreSQL database (Neon, Railway, Supabase, PlanetScale).

ShipFast's MongoDB option is worth calling out: MongoDB on Vercel means Atlas, which has a free tier but higher latency than Postgres-based options on typical edge configurations. Most ShipFast users choose the Supabase path for better Vercel compatibility.

Pricing Breakdown

Understanding total cost of ownership matters more than the sticker price:

ixartz: Free (MIT). Pro tier at ~$99 one-time adds landing pages and extra components. Ongoing cost: Clerk at $0 until 10,000 MAUs, then ~$25/month per 1,000 MAUs. Lowest total cost for small products.

ShipFast: $199 one-time (core) with lifetime updates included. No recurring cost from the boilerplate itself. Community support included via Discord.

Supastarter: $299 one-time (Next.js version). Lifetime updates. Supabase free tier handles most early-stage products. True all-in cost is just $299 for years.

Makerkit: ~$299/year subscription. If you need additional plugins (AI chatbot, roadmap, etc.), those are priced separately at $99–199 each. A fully-loaded Makerkit setup with 2-3 plugins runs $500–700 in year one, then $299/year after.

Vercel Starter: Free. Zero ongoing boilerplate cost.

Total cost if you need full B2B SaaS (multi-tenancy + admin + i18n) in year one:

Option	Year 1	Year 2+
ixartz	$99 (Pro) + build time	$0/year
ShipFast	$199 + ~3 weeks of custom dev	$0/year
Supastarter	$299	$0/year
Makerkit	$299-700	~$299/year
Vercel Starter	$0 + ~4 weeks custom dev	$0/year

For B2B SaaS, Supastarter has the best one-time price-to-features ratio. Makerkit's subscription model pays off if you value continuous updates and architectural support over years.

When to Use Which

Pick ixartz if:

You want a free, MIT-licensed starting point with a modern stack (Next.js 16, Tailwind v4, Clerk, Drizzle)
You're building B2C — individual users, no teams
Open-source contribution or public repository is important
You want to avoid a subscription and control your own auth via Clerk's managed service

Pick ShipFast if:

Solo founder building B2C (apps for individual users, not companies)
Speed to first paying user is the top priority
You want the largest community (7,500+ Discord) for fast answers
Budget is tight and the $199 price is important — it's the lowest paid option

Pick Supastarter if:

Building B2B SaaS where companies buy accounts and invite teammates
You want the most complete Supabase integration without writing RLS yourself
Multi-tenancy, RBAC, and i18n are day-one requirements, not future problems
You prefer a one-time payment and don't want subscription obligations

Pick Makerkit if:

Building with a team of 2+ developers where code quality and architecture matter
You want to add features incrementally via plugins without accumulating technical debt
The product will grow in complexity over 2+ years (architecture amortizes over time)
You need the best testing setup out of the box (Vitest + Playwright)

Pick Vercel next-saas-starter if:

Learning Next.js SaaS patterns before committing to a paid option
Prototype or proof-of-concept with official Next.js team support
Your product is very simple (single-user auth + Stripe, nothing more)

The honest summary: none of these boilerplates is universally best. ixartz wins on price and modernity. ShipFast wins on community and simplicity. Supastarter wins on Supabase depth and B2B completeness. Makerkit wins on code quality and long-term maintainability. Match the tool to the product you're building, not to whichever one has the best landing page.

See the ShipFast vs Supastarter comparison for a focused two-way breakdown.

Read our Makerkit review 2026 for the in-depth look at Makerkit's plugin system and architecture.

Read our Supastarter review 2026 for the full Supabase-native B2B analysis.

Browse best Next.js SaaS boilerplates 2026 for the complete ranked list.

The SaaS Boilerplate Matrix (Free PDF)