Laravel SparkvsWave

Laravel Spark ($99/year) and Wave (free, open source) are the two dominant SaaS boilerplates in the Laravel ecosystem. Spark is the official solution from Taylor Otwell (Laravel's creator) — it integrates with Laravel Cashier for Stripe/Paddle billing, includes team management, and is maintained alongside Laravel itself. Wave is a community-built alternative by DevDojo that offers similar features — authentication, billing, user profiles, and a dashboard — but is free and includes a more opinionated UI with blog, notifications, and API key management.

Spark's advantage is official support and tight Laravel integration. When Laravel releases a new version, Spark updates promptly. The codebase is maintained by the same team that builds the framework, ensuring architectural consistency. Spark also supports both Stripe and Paddle, giving you flexibility in payment processing — Paddle handles EU VAT compliance automatically, which is a significant time saver for products selling to European customers.

Wave's advantage is cost and features per dollar. It's free and includes features that Spark doesn't: a built-in blog, user notifications, a theming system, and API key management. Wave's community is active and the DevDojo team maintains regular updates, though not with the same guarantee of compatibility that Spark offers through its official Laravel relationship.

Choose Spark if you want official Laravel support, need Paddle for EU VAT compliance, or prefer the peace of mind that comes with a commercially-maintained product from the framework creator. Choose Wave if you want a free alternative with more built-in features, don't mind community-maintained updates, and are comfortable with a more opinionated UI layer.