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2025 Year in Review: Lessons from Solo SaaS Development

This is Day 25, the final article of the Solo SaaS Development - Design, Implementation & Operations Advent Calendar 2025.

I'll reflect on the technical knowledge shared over the past 25 days and summarize what I learned from 6 months of development.

๐Ÿค– 2025: The Year Development Changed

2025 was the year AI-powered development went mainstream.

Claude Code was released in February, followed by GitHub Copilot Agent, OpenAI Codex, and other AI coding tools. "Having AI write your code" became a realistic option for many developers.

I started developing Memoreru in Juneโ€”right when these tools were maturing.

As I wrote on Day 23, collaborating with Claude Code significantly changed my development style. Humans handle design, AI assists with implementation, and humans take responsibility for reviews. This division of labor enabled solo development that feels like team development.

The PDD (Progress-Driven Development) introduced on Day 24 is also a methodology built around AI collaboration. By maintaining design documents and visualizing progress, you can develop efficiently with AI agents.

Starting indie development in 2025 was good timing. It was a year when AI tools greatly expanded the possibilities for solo developers.

๐Ÿ“– The 25-Day Journey

The 25 articles were structured to follow the flow of indie development. The structure allows those starting indie development to experience the development journey vicariously.

Prologue (12/1-3) covered the flow from idea to first commit, AI-friendly tech selection, and Next.js + Supabase project structure.

Foundation (12/4-9) covered documentation strategy, Git workflow, DB design, and authentication implementation. Day 9's NextAuth.js โ†’ Better Auth migration may be helpful for those struggling with auth library choices.

Frontend, API & Infrastructure (12/10-13) started with App Router directory design, followed by MPA โ†’ SPA migration, Route Handler โ†’ Hono migration, and Vercel optimization. The SPA migration on Day 11 was a major refactoring with over 150 commits.

UX & Features (12/14-17) introduced mobile-first design, infinite scroll implementation, Excel-like table UI, and semantic search with pgvector. Day 15's React 19 + Zustand pitfall documents an unexpected bug encounter.

Practical Challenges (12/18-22) covered bugs discovered through TypeScript strict mode, the React vulnerability disclosed in December, Stripe billing, GA4 + Clarity, and multi-tenant designโ€”all operational topics.

Retrospective (12/23-25) covers Claude Code collaboration, Progress-Driven Development (PDD), and concludes with this article.

๐Ÿš€ Tech Stack

Here's the final technology stack after 6 months of development.

Frontend

Technology Purpose Related Articles
Next.js 15 (App Router) Framework Days 3, 10, 11
React 19 UI Library Day 15
TypeScript 5 Type Safety Day 18
Zustand Client State Management Days 11, 15

Backend & Infrastructure

Technology Purpose Related Articles
Supabase BaaS Days 3, 6
PostgreSQL Database Days 6, 17
pgvector Vector Search Day 17
Drizzle ORM ORM Days 3, 6
Better Auth Authentication & 2FA Day 9
Hono API Framework Day 12
Zod Schema Definition & Validation Days 12, 18
Vercel Hosting Days 3, 5, 13
Stripe Payments Day 20
OpenAI API AI Features Day 17

UI & Editor

Technology Purpose Related Articles
@dnd-kit Drag & Drop Day 16
React Spreadsheet Spreadsheet UI Day 16

Development Tools

Technology Purpose Related Articles
Claude Code AI Pair Programming Days 5, 23, 24
Git Worktree Parallel Development Day 5
Biome Linter / Formatter Day 18
GA4 Analytics Day 21
Microsoft Clarity Heatmap Analysis Day 21

For more details on the tech stack, see:

https://memoreru.com/about

๐Ÿ’ก Lessons Learned

Technology Selection and Migration

On Day 2, I wrote about "Tech Selection for AI-Driven Development." Choose technologies with rich documentation, type safety, and simple APIs. This was my selection philosophy.

However, the first choice isn't always right. Over 6 months, I made 4 major technology migrations.

Migration Reason Related Article
Prisma โ†’ Drizzle ORM Better type inference, smaller bundle Day 6
NextAuth.js โ†’ Better Auth Simpler API, Drizzle compatibility Day 9
Route Handler โ†’ Hono OpenAPI integration, middleware design Day 12
MPA โ†’ SPA Better UX, centralized state management Day 11

I sometimes think I should have gone with SPA from the start, but starting with MPA helped me understand SPA's benefits.

What's important is maintaining a state where you can make changes when you notice problems. Tests and design documents helped with this.

Documentation and Testing

On Day 4, I wrote about "Documentation-First Approach."

Feature specs, API specs, DB specs, UI specs, and thought logs recording design decisions. I've been maintaining all of these.

Time spent on documentation paid off as development efficiency. In the Claude Code collaboration introduced on Day 23, having design documents lets you say "implement according to this design." The PDD (Progress-Driven Development) from Day 24 also only works when design documents exist.

Tests proved their value during major changes. SPA migration, Better Auth migration, Drizzle migration. I could make these changes confidently because tests existed. As I wrote on Day 18, TypeScript strict mode prevents type errors but not logic bugs. Having tests meant I could make changes without fear.

Development Efficiency

Here's a summary of the practices introduced across the 25 articles.

Challenge Solution Article
Parallel Development Git Worktree Day 5
Type Safety TypeScript Strict Mode Day 18
API Type Definitions Hono + Zod OpenAPI Day 12
Progress Management PDD (Progress-Driven Development) Day 24
AI Collaboration Design Documents + Claude Code Day 23

These practices are effective individually, but combining them produces even greater results.

๐ŸŒฑ Looking Ahead to 2026

2025 was a year when the evolution of AI tools significantly changed how we develop.

I'll continue development in 2026. I hope these 25 articles serve as a reference for those pursuing indie development.

The thinking behind the development is documented in the note Advent Calendar. If interested, please check it out:

https://adventar.org/calendars/12464

I share development updates on X, so please follow if interested:

https://x.com/pipipi_dev

Thank you for reading to the end.

๐Ÿ“ Article List

Prologue (12/1-3)

Foundation: Design, DB & Auth (12/4-9)

Frontend, API & Infrastructure (12/10-13)

UX & Features (12/14-17)

Practical Challenges (12/18-22)

Retrospective (12/23-25)

Day Title
23 How Claude Code Changed My Indie Dev: AI Pair Programming
24 Progress-Driven Development (PDD): Indie Dev with AI Agents
25 2025 Year in Review: Lessons from Solo SaaS Development (This Article)

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