I am super excited to announce the release of two brand-new Makerkit SaaS kits: Next.js with Drizzle ORM and Next.js with Prisma - both powered by Better Auth. These are the first kits that don't rely on a PaaS (like Supabase or Firebase) - built from the ground up for a fully self-hosted, customizable experience.
I'll say it plainly: these are the best SaaS starter kits in the world.
Three and a half years of running a SaaS kit business. Thousands of conversations with customers. Listening to feedback from people who bought - and people who didn't. Dog-fooding relentlessly. All of it poured into this release.
Key Features
- Modern: built on the very latest technologies: Next.js, Drizzle or Prisma, Better Auth, Zod, Base UI, Stripe (or Polar)
- Modularity: every piece of the stack can be replaced with another one thanks to a smart architecture
- Best Practices: based and written with the best practices in mind
- Future-Proof: when a piece of the stack gets outdated, we can easily swap it with a newer one
- Depth: fully-featured, with even the tiniest details and edge cases taken care of
- Agentic: documented extensively to be the most AI-agents-friendly starter kit in the world, including its own MCP Server
The Tech Stack
The tech stack allows you to self-host or deploy the SaaS Starter Kit virtually anywhere: your own VPS, Cloudflare, Vercel, Railway, Digital Ocean, and more.
All the libraries are using their latest versions and patches - making it the most modern tech stack you'll be seeing.
Next.js 16 App Router
Next.js and React are still king. More and more applications use this combo, and AI-Agents are trained with a gigantic set of training data that makes them naturally good at writing React code. Using Next.js in 2026 is still the safe choice.
Better Auth
Better Auth has become one of the hottest libraries for handling authentication in TypeScript apps and it actually goes even beyond auth (multi-tenancy, payments, etc.). We leverage the best parts of Better Auth and extend it where we need more out of it.
Drizzle ORM or Prisma
You choose your ORM. Drizzle ORM is built by a small and dynamic team and has conquered lots of developers thanks to its simplicity. Prisma is the established powerhouse with excellent developer experience, type safety, and a mature ecosystem. Both kits share the same architecture and features - pick whichever fits your style.
Base UI + Shadcn Components
For the UI layer, we're using Shadcn UI components built on Base UI - a modern, unstyled component library from the MUI team. Think of it as the next evolution of Radix UI: headless primitives with better accessibility, smaller bundle size, and a cleaner API. Same Shadcn experience you know and love, better foundation underneath.
Additional Libraries
Other libraries include Zod for validation, Unstorage and Uppy for uploading files across a variety of storage providers (S3-like is the default), and finally we ship with support for not one but two payment providers: Stripe (default) and Polar, an up-and-coming Merchant of Record.
Functionality
Here's everything you get out of the box - no assembly required:
Marketing and Public Pages
Launch day ready. Landing page, blog, help center, changelog, and legal pages - all styled and wired up.
Authentication
Sign up, sign in, password reset, email verification - it just works. Powered by Better Auth.
Multiple Account Modes
Build for anyone: hybrid mode (personal accounts + organizations, a la Github), personal only (B2C), or organizations only (B2B). One codebase, three business models.
Multi-Tenancy
Enterprise-grade from day one. RBAC baked in, plus per-tenant role management so your customers can define their own permissions.
Billing and Payments
Monetize immediately with Stripe or Polar. Subscriptions, usage-based billing, customer portal - all handled.
Super Admin
You're in control. Manage users, manage organizations, impersonate accounts for debugging, and extend it however you need.
Analytics, Monitoring, and CMS
Ship with confidence. Analytics, monitoring, and CMS integration ready to plug in.
Differences with Supabase Kit
Some of you will be asking what the main differences are and which one to choose.
Generally speaking, it depends whether you want to deploy to Supabase and are invested in using the overall Supabase stack (Auth, storage, etc.) or not.
Supabase does offer a ton of functionality off the shelf, and its feature set is expanding further: data lake, logging, queues, secrets manager, and so on. It’s compelling for smaller or larger companies alike - and it allows self-hosting (which is also getting smoother). In general, betting on Supabase is never a bad idea.
However, I recognize some people may not like relying on a third party for the whole lot. It is true that Supabase can be self-hosted, but that itself comes with the added complexity of hosting a whole backend system - opposite to self-hosting just the database. This is a valid argument that many customers expressed to me.
Furthermore, many teams are already invested in other clouds: AWS, Azure, or perhaps they’re self-hosting the whole lot. These customers are also hesitant to use or host entire backends.
Others yet want to use growing established database providers like Planetscale, which recently introduced their Postgres offering.
In short: if you're willing to bet on Supabase, choose the Supabase stack. If you're unsure - or simply want more freedom - this stack will be perfect.
Get Started
Choose your preferred ORM and get building:
- Drizzle Kit - Lightweight, SQL-like syntax, maximum flexibility
- Prisma Kit - Rich ecosystem, powerful migrations, excellent tooling
Both kits share the same architecture, features, and quality. The only difference is the ORM layer - everything else is identical.
And the Supabase Kits? They're getting a major upgrade based on everything we've learned building these new stacks. Every kit in the Makerkit family is leveling up.
Ready to build your next SaaS? Get started with Drizzle or get started with Prisma.