8 Tools You Need to Build Your First SaaS 🧙♂️ 🪄
Oct 22, 2024 · 8 min read
Building your first SaaS can feel like a massive challenge.
But with the right tools, You can make the process a whole lot easier and focus on the features that make your product unique.
Today, I will share 8 Tools that are widely used by the Developer Community. It will help you build your first SaaS faster.
Let’s Start!
1. v0 - Generate UI in seconds
Since the launch of v0, it has changed the whole dynamics of front-end development.
According to the Vercel team, v0 is the starting point for the next generation of user interfaces.
With v0, we can provide prompts and it creates user interfaces in React based on our prompt.
For example, I tried to create a UI for an Invoice generator application. And here’s the result I got:
If you have any suggestions or feedback for improvement, you can follow up with a prompt explaining what you want.
v0 will iterate on the existing output and update the code with the newly suggested changes in real-time.
The Best part?
We’ll get the complete code of that and tweak it according to our preference. This is super helpful to build the first iteration of our SaaS.
Pro tip: If you’re looking for similar free tools, check out Webcrumbs and Bolt.new. Both offer free UI generation options!
2. Shadcn - UI Components
Having a Good, eye-catching, and intuitive UI is really important when building a SaaS.
But with a short team and limited time, it’s very hard to build a UI from scratch.
That’s where Shadcn comes into the picture!
Shadcn provides beautiful UI components that we can directly add to our app. We can also customize it according to our needs.
It's not a component library, which means we don’t need to install it as a package.
The simplest way to use Shadcn components is with Shadcn CLI. we can initialize the CLI with the following command:
npx shadcn@latest init
Now, to add a component we just have to run the following command, and it will do the rest:
npx shadcn@latest add [component]
If you want to customize the components further, you can edit every Shadcn component on v0 by Vercel.
This allows you to easily customize the components in natural language and paste them into your app.
3. Stytch – Authentication in Minutes
One of the most critical pieces of any SaaS is ensuring secure, seamless authentication for your users.
To be very honest, building auth from scratch can be a real headache. That’s where Stytch comes in.
With just a few lines of code, we can implement passwordless authentication, social logins, 2FA, and more.
They also have a B2B Saas starter template, You can check them at B2B Quickstars.
As a SaaS founder, your priority is delivering value to your customers.
With Stytch, you can implement user authentication in minutes, freeing up time to focus on the features that will make your product stand out.
As your user base grows, Stytch scales with you, ensuring your authentication remains fast and reliable, even under heavy load.
4. Permit.io – Authorization Without Headaches
Now that we’ve solved authentication, we need to control who gets access to what features.
Permit.io is an open-source authorization that simplifies this process. It allows you to manage roles, permissions, and access levels effortlessly.
Suppose your Saas is growing well and you want to offer premium features to paying customers while keeping certain functionality locked for free users.
Instead of building the whole infrastructure by yourself, you can use Permit.io to manage it for you.
Here’s a Small Demo of the Permit and its features:
It integrates seamlessly with your existing stack, allowing you to define roles, permissions, and access levels without worrying about scaling.
Permit.io is highly customizable, so you can fine-tune your authorization to match the exact needs of your product.
They also offer SDKs for various programming languages including JavaScript, Python, Go, and Java, making it easy to integrate Permit.io into your existing codebase.
If you’re interested in getting more hands-on, I’ve written an article on how to implement RBAC in Next.js apps—feel free to check it out.
Plus, Permit.io is hosting thier Launch Week from October 28th to November 1st, 2024.
Don’t miss out on the chance to get some cool swags!
✅ Sign up to join the event.
✅ Join the live streams to discover new features and win a Custom Keyboard!
✅ Share your event ticket on social media to get a swag package.
✅ And win some limited Edition Stickers.
All you need is your GitHub account to register, and you’re good to go! 🎁
5. Supabase - Backend as a Service
The backend infrastructure is the backbone of any SaaS, but building and maintaining a scalable backend from scratch can be a nightmare, especially if you’re a solo founder or working with a small team.
Supabase is a fully-featured Backend as a Service (BaaS) that allows you to focus on building your app without worrying about the complexities of database management, APIs, and real-time updates.
With Supabase, we get a PostgreSQL database, RESTful APIs, real-time subscriptions, and much more – all out of the box.
Let’s say you’re building a project management tool. With Supabase, you can quickly set up user accounts, store project details, and even implement real-time collaboration features without writing a single line of backend code.
Supabase manages everything behind the scenes, so you can focus on delivering a great product experience to your users.
You can check out the Docs to know more about them.
6. Upstash – Supercharge Your Caching
Caching is essential for speeding up your SaaS, especially as your user base grows.
Upstash Redis is a serverless, low-latency Redis database designed specifically for developers who need a fast and scalable caching solution without the complexity of managing infrastructure.
As your Saas scales, Performance becomes a serious problem to handle.
But with Upstash, you can offload frequently accessed data like user sessions or API responses to a Redis cache, significantly improving your app’s responsiveness.
Suppose, Your Saas gets hundreds of thousands of API requests per day. With Upstash, you can cache responses and reduce the load on your primary database, keeping everything fast and efficient.
The Best Part?
You don’t have to worry about scaling – Upstash automatically handles that for you.
7. Resend - Email Done Right
Email is still one of the most important communication channels for any SaaS.
When you’re just starting out, you don’t want to spend hours setting up email infrastructure.
With Resend, you can integrate email into your app in minutes and ensure your emails land in users’ inboxes, not their spam folders.
It also provides detailed analytics, so you can track open rates, clicks, and more, giving you valuable insights into how your emails are performing.
This feature can be really crucial to measure the success of marketing campaigns, Newsletters, etc.
Setting Up Resend is Really Simple and straightforward.
First, Install the npm package:
npm install resend
Then Create a server to send an email by using the html parameter.
//server.ts
import { Resend } from 'resend';
const resend = new Resend('re_123456789');
(async function () {
const { data, error } = await resend.emails.send({
from: 'Acme <onboarding@resend.dev>',
to: ['arindammajumder2020@gmail.com'],
subject: 'Hello Arindam',
html: '<strong>Really love this Tool! Thanks for Sharing</strong>',
});
if (error) {
return console.error({ error });
}
console.log({ data });
})();
That’s it! Resend will do the rest of the Work for you.
This was a very simple implementation that I’ve shown, For more complex ones, you can check out their documentation.
8. Vercel - Hassle-free Deployment
After putting all the hard work into building your SaaS, you need a solid platform to deploy it.
Vercel is the go-to solution for deploying modern web apps.
Whether you’re using Next.js, React, or any other framework, Vercel takes care of the heavy lifting, ensuring your app is fast, reliable, and globally distributed.
Vercel is famous for its amazing developer experience.
It’s not just only about deployment – it also provides built-in features like serverless functions, CDN integration, and analytics, making it easier than ever to monitor and optimize your app’s performance.
Personally, I really like the automatic deployments from Git. With it, I can push code changes to production with zero downtime.
For example, you’ve built your SaaS using React and Next.js, and now it’s time to go live.
With Vercel, you simply connect your GitHub repository, and in a matter of seconds, your app is deployed to the cloud, optimized for performance, and ready for users.
It’s that easy – no need to worry about setting up servers or managing infrastructure.
Alternatively, you can use Cloudflare to deploy your applications
That’s it! I've tried to cover a wide range of tools. if you know other awesome tools, write them in the comments!
Team Permit Supported me for writing this article, but they did not influence the content of this write-up. Join Permit Launch Week.
Hope you found this article useful. If so, feel free to share it with your developer friends!
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For Paid collaboration mail me at: arindammajumder2020@gmail.com.
Thank you for Reading till the end.
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Also published on DEV.to.