The Vibeary — round-up
Best open-source SaaS boilerplates and starters
The boring parts of a SaaS — auth, billing, teams, roles, transactional email, an admin view — take weeks and are identical everywhere. A good boilerplate hands you those weeks back, and an open-source one lets you read exactly what you are inheriting first. This shelf collects the starters worth forking, including AI application templates with streaming and tool-calling already handled. Judge them on how easy they are to strip down: the best boilerplate is one you can delete half of.
What earned a place
- Auth, billing and tenancy actually implemented, not stubbed
- Readable structure you can strip back
- Open source with a permissive licence
- Recent commits — a stale boilerplate is a liability
24 picks from the library
- 01
Activepieces
No-code automation builder with a visual flow canvas, 200+ connectors and an AI-first agent layer.
Why it made the list: MIT-licensed Zapier alternative, so you can actually commercialise a fork
Open-source product to forkMITActivepieces (@activepieces)activepieces.com
- 02
AI SDK Preview RAG
Compact RAG demo showing streaming retrieval, source citation and generative UI with the AI SDK.
Why it made the list: Small enough to read in an hour and lift the retrieval patterns wholesale
AI app starterMITVercel Labs (@vercel-labs)github.com
- 03
AI SDK RAG Starter
Vercel's step-by-step RAG chatbot starter with embeddings, pgvector storage and tool-based retrieval over your own data.
Why it made the list: The canonical minimal RAG scaffold; strip it down instead of over-engineering LangChain
AI app starterMITVercel (@vercel)github.com
- 04
Aptabase
Privacy-friendly analytics for mobile and desktop apps with SDKs for Swift, Kotlin, Flutter, Electron and Tauri.
Why it made the list: App analytics rather than web; a much less crowded niche to build in
Open-source product to forkGPLGuilherme Oenning (@goenning)aptabase.com
- 05
Async Labs SaaS
Battle-tested TypeScript SaaS app with teams, real-time chat, Stripe billing and MongoDB, extracted from a shipped product.
Why it made the list: Extracted from a real production app rather than written as a demo
Open-source SaaS boilerplateMITAsync Labs (@async-labs)github.com
- 06
Bedrock
Fullstack starter by Max Stoiber pairing Next.js, GraphQL, Prisma, Stripe, magic-link auth and a documented architecture.
Why it made the list: Design and architecture decisions documented publicly; good reading even without buying
Open-source SaaS boilerplatepaidMax Stoiber (@mxstbr)bedrock.mxstbr.com
- 07
BoxyHQ SaaS Starter Kit
Enterprise-flavoured Next.js starter shipping SAML SSO, directory sync, audit logs, webhooks and multi-tenant teams out of the box.
Why it made the list: SSO and audit logging pre-built is the exact thing that unblocks enterprise deals
Open-source SaaS boilerplateopen-sourceBoxyHQ (@boxyhq)github.com
- 08
Campfire in Rust
Rust port of Basecamp's ONCE Campfire group chat: one binary replaces Ruby, Puma, Redis and Resque while reusing the existing SQLite data.
Why it made the list: Drop-in self-hosted chat that runs 19 to 44 times faster with no migration.
Open-source product to forkMITBasecampgithub.com
- 09
Cap
Loom alternative for screen recording and sharing, with a native desktop app and instant shareable links.
Why it made the list: Desktop-plus-web open product with genuine interface craft; rare combination
Open-source product to forkGPLCap (@CapSoftware)cap.so
- 10
Capsule
Packs an HTML UI and SQLite data into one portable .capsule file you can share like a document, no cloud required.
Why it made the list: Apps become single files you AirDrop or WhatsApp instead of hosting.
Open-source product to forkfree@bashtianwithcapsule.app
- 11
Carbon
Open-source manufacturing ERP, MRP, MES, and QMS on Postgres you own, runnable via Docker for on-prem, VPC, or air-gapped shops.
Why it made the list: A full factory system of record you can audit and self-host, not another SaaS ERP demo.
Open-source product to forkGPLcrbnosgithub.com
- 12
ChatHN
Chatbot that queries the Hacker News API through OpenAI function calling, with streaming generative UI.
Why it made the list: Cleanest tiny example of tool calling driving real UI components
AI app starterMITSteven Tey (@steventey)vercel.com
- 13
ClassroomIO
No-code platform for building and running teaching platforms with courses, cohorts, assignments and video lessons.
Why it made the list: Course-platform SaaS is a common client ask; this covers most of it already
Open-source product to forkGPLClassroomIO (@classroomio)classroomio.com
- 14
Cloudflare SaaS Stack
Full-stack starter deploying to Cloudflare Workers with D1, R2, Drizzle and auth, so hosting cost stays near zero.
Why it made the list: Edge-native SaaS on a free tier; almost every other boilerplate assumes Vercel plus a DB bill
Open-source SaaS boilerplateMITDhravya Shah (@Dhravya)github.com
- 15
CMSaasStarter
SvelteKit SaaS template with Supabase auth, Stripe subscriptions, marketing site, blog, settings and pricing pages already wired.
Why it made the list: The best-maintained SvelteKit SaaS base; Svelte devs are badly underserved here
Open-source SaaS boilerplateMITCritical Moments (@CriticalMoments)github.com
- 16
create-t3-turbo
Turborepo template sharing tRPC, Drizzle and Tailwind code between a Next.js web app and an Expo mobile app.
Why it made the list: Web and native sharing one typed API layer is still surprisingly hard to set up
Open-source SaaS boilerplateMITJulius Marminge (@juliusmarminge) / T3 OSSgithub.com
- 17
Death Plan Switch
Self-hosted dead man's switch for solo developers: a weekly check-in email, then escalating reminders, then your next of kin, then your contacts with messages you wrote.
Why it made the list: Solves solo-founder succession in one PHP install with no database, accounts or vault.
Open-source product to forkMITPeter Bishopdeathplanswitch.com
- 18
Django Rocket
CLI that scaffolds a Django SaaS with auth, billing, Tailwind and deployment config in one command.
Why it made the list: Free Django SaaS scaffold in a market where SaaS Pegasus costs hundreds
Open-source SaaS boilerplateMITErnesto González (@ernestofgonzalez)github.com
- 19
Documenso
Open DocuSign alternative for legally binding e-signatures with templates, teams, audit trail and self-hosting.
Why it made the list: Signing infrastructure is brutal to build; forking this skips a year of work
Open-source product to forkGPLDocumenso (@documenso)documenso.com
- 20
Dub
Link management and attribution platform with short links, conversion tracking, affiliate programs and analytics.
Why it made the list: Reference-quality Next.js codebase; people fork it for the architecture, not the links
Open-source product to forkGPLSteven Tey (@steventey)dub.co
- 21
Empathic Voice Interface Starter
Next.js starter for realtime voice chat with emotional expression measurement using Hume's EVI API.
Why it made the list: Voice UI starter with expression data; a differentiated demo most teams cannot build fast
AI app starterMITHume AI (@HumeAI)vercel.com
- 22
Enferno
Flask framework preconfigured with auth, roles, Vue, Celery tasks and Docker for rapid Python app delivery.
Why it made the list: Mature Flask starter that has quietly been maintained for close to a decade
Open-source SaaS boilerplateMITNidal Alhariri (@level09)github.com
- 23
Extro
Browser extension starter kit with React, Tailwind, typed messaging, i18n, billing and cross-browser build tooling.
Why it made the list: Extension boilerplates with billing built in basically do not exist elsewhere
Open-source SaaS boilerplateopen-sourceTurboStarter (@turbostarter)github.com
- 24
Formbricks
Survey and experience-management platform with in-product micro-surveys, targeting, link surveys and a visual editor.
Why it made the list: Typeform-grade UX plus in-app targeting, which the commercial tools charge heavily for
Open-source product to forkGPLFormbricks (@formbricks)formbricks.com
Questions
- Is a boilerplate worth it if I use an AI coding agent?
- Often more so. An agent works far better inside an existing, coherent structure than on an empty folder.
- What should I check before forking?
- The licence, the last commit date, the test coverage on billing, and how tightly it couples to one hosting provider.