Choosing the right boilerplate for your SaaS application is essential, especially in the early stages of development. A wrong choice will only result in frustration with your code, whereas the correct choice will give you a foundation for your SaaS application, and this will be a great productivity booster.
With the current popularity of the Next.js framework in the development of SaaS applications, the choice of the correct Next.js boilerplate for your SaaS application is essential. In the next sections, we will discuss the selection of the correct boilerplate for your B2B SaaS application in terms of the correct features, architecture, and scalability.
Why Start with a Boilerplate?
You might be wondering why you should use a boilerplate. You might be asking yourself, why shouldn't I start from scratch?
Well, although this is a fair question to ask yourself, once you take a step back and look at the big picture, you can clearly see that there are many advantages to utilizing a boilerplate. For example, a good Next.js boilerplate will offer pre-built solutions for features that are used most often, such as authentication, billing, database, and many other features. These are essentially the fundamental components of any SaaS application, and utilizing a boilerplate for your application can save you weeks of development time.
What B2B SaaS Really Needs from a Boilerplate
It is essential to understand what your B2B SaaS product needs, as opposed to what a regular application might need, before moving on to the different boilerplate options available. The following are some of the essential requirements of what your B2B SaaS product might need:
Multi-Tenancy Support
Why it Matters: The users of your B2B SaaS product are not regular users, as the name might suggest. The users of your product will be organizations, and each organization will have multiple users with different needs.
Look for: A boilerplate that has explicit support for multi-tenancy, organizations, workspaces, and a flexible data model to support different kinds of users.
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
Why it Matters: Your SaaS product needs to have support for different kinds of permissions. This essentially means you should have support for admin, member, and viewer roles within an organization.
Look for: Support for RBAC out of the box to avoid future headaches in implementing this feature.
Stripe Integration That Actually Works
Why It Matters: Billing is one of the most important features of any SaaS application. Stripe integration is one of the most important features that must be integrated properly and must support features such as subscriptions and tiered pricing.
Look for: Stripe integration support, including webhooks and integration with your database and self-service customer portal.
Real-World Authentication
Why It Matters: Authentication for B2B SaaS applications is complex. You must be able to support email and password authentication, social authentication, and magic links. Single sign-on support might be necessary for B2B applications.
Look for: Support for authentication libraries such as Auth0, NextAuth.js, Supabase Auth, and other libraries.
TypeScript Support
Why It Matters: When building a SaaS application in 2024 and later, having TypeScript support is crucial. This is because TypeScript support can prevent many errors and can be very useful for refactoring your application later on.
Look for: TypeScript and strict type checking support.
Evaluating the Technical Decisions in a Boilerplate
In addition to features that you will need for your SaaS product, it is also important to evaluate the technical decisions that a boilerplate has made:
App Router vs Pages Router
Why It Matters: Next.js has now adopted the App Router by default in version 13.
Look for: A boilerplate with App Router for future-proofing your application and avoiding technical debt.
Database & ORM Choice
Why it Matters: The database is the core of your application. Whether you're using PostgreSQL, Prisma, Supabase, or Drizzle, you should look for support for TypeScript, scalability, and serverless.
Look for: A boilerplate that uses a well-supported ORM and follows best practices such as connection pooling.
Styling System
Why It Matters: The styling system will have a direct impact on the development speed. Therefore, you should look for a boilerplate that has a styling system that fits your team's needs and is appropriate for large-scale applications.
Look for: Tailwind CSS is well-supported and is appropriate for large-scale applications.
API
Why it Matters: API design is relevant to performance and scalability, and you should look for a boilerplate that offers full-stack type safety.
Look for: If you want strong type safety, you should look for a boilerplate that uses tRPC.
Red Flags to Watch For
It is as important to understand what to look out for as it is to understand what to look for in the boilerplates:
Abandoned Maintenance
Look for: A boilerplate that has recent commits and is being actively maintained.
Poor Documentation
Look for: A well-documented boilerplate that has extensive documentation on how to quickly set up the boilerplate. If this is not the case, it is likely a poorly supported boilerplate.
Overcomplicated Architecture
Look for: A boilerplate that has a simple and clean architecture. Avoid overly complex solutions that try to solve problems you don't need to solve at the current time.
Matching the Boilerplate to Your Stage
The boilerplates that you select should be relevant to your development stage.
- Solo Founder / Early-Stage - Focus: Speed is of the essence. You need something that helps you ship ASAP. Look for: Basic multi-tenancy support, integration with Stripe, and authentication. Avoid complex DevOps support.
- Small Team / Post-Validation - Focus: Now is the time to focus on code quality, scalability, and maintainability. Look for: A strong base in TypeScript, testing, and documentation.
- Scaling to Enterprise - Focus: Enterprise-grade security, compliance, and integration (SSO, etc.). Look for: A strong base in enterprise-grade features like SSO, Auth0, and role-based access controls.
Open Source vs Paid Boilerplates
The Next.js boilerplates can be either open source or paid. Here is a quick comparison of the two:
Open Source Boilerplates
Pros: Totally free and open source.
Cons: May not be of the best quality. May have old code. No support.
Paid Boilerplates
Pros: Support and maintenance are included.
Cons: It is quite expensive. However, if you and your team can save a few weeks of development time using this template, it is definitely worth the cost.
Checklist: What to Verify Before You Commit
Before committing to a specific Next.js starter template, ensure that it meets these criteria:
- Documentation: Can you run it locally in under 30 minutes?
- TypeScript: Is strict mode enabled? Does it handle types correctly?
- Stripe Integration: Does it handle webhooks, subscription syncing, and the customer portal?
- Authentication: Is it well-implemented? Is session management correct?
- Multi-Tenancy: Does the boilerplate support organizations or workspaces?
Conclusion: Making the Final Call
The selection of a boilerplate for your SaaS application is a very important decision, as this can affect the course of your entire project. Therefore, it is important to consider the needs of the present as well as the future. The best Next.js boilerplate for your project will be the one that makes you feel comfortable. By making the right call, you are setting the stage for a successful product that can scale efficiently without any regrets.
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