Boilerplate App for SaaS Product

Open source web app that saves you weeks of work when building your own SaaS product.

• The boilerplate app comes with many basic SaaS features (see Features below) so that you are able to focus on features that differentiate your product.
• We built this boilerplate for ourselves to focus more on what matters. We've used it to quickly launch async, builderbook, and other real-world SaaS web apps.

Live demo:

• https://saas-app.async-await.com

Contents

• Features
• Run locally
• Deploy
• Built with
• Screenshots
• Contributing
• Showcase
• Team
• License
• Project structure

Features

• User authentication with Google, cookie, and session.
• Production-ready Express server with compression, parser, and helmet.
• Transactional emails (AWS SES): welcome, team invitation, and payment.
• Adding email addresses to newsletter lists (Mailchimp): new users, paying users.
• File upload, load, and deletion (AWS S3) with pre-signed request for: Posts, Team Profile, and User Profile.
• Team creation, Team Member invitation, and settings for Team and User.
• Opinionated architecture:
  • keeping babel and webpack configurations under the hood,
  • striving to minimize number of configurations,
  • withAuth HOC to pass user prop and control user access to pages,
  • withLayout HOC for shared layout and to pass additional data to pages,
  • withStore HOC, developer-friendly state management with MobX,
  • server-side rendering with Material-UI,
  • model-specific components in addition to common components.
• Universally-available environmental variables at runtime.
• Server-side environmental variables managed with dotenv.
• Custom logger (configure what not to print in production).
• Useful components for any web app: ActiveLink, AutoComplete, Confirm, Notifier, MenuWithLinks, and more.
• Analytics with Google Analytics.
• Production-ready, scalable architecture:
  • app - user-facing web app with Next/Express server, responsible for rendering pages (either client-side or server-side). app sends requests via API methods and fetch to api server's Express routes.
  • api - server-only web app with Express server, responsible for processing requests for internal and external APIs.
  • we prepared both apps for easy deployment to now by Zeit.
• (upcoming) Payments with Stripe: subscribing to plan, managing subscription and card information.

Run locally

To run locally, you will need to run two apps: api and app.

Running api app:

• Before running, create a .env file inside the api folder with the environmental variables listed below.
  This file must have values for the required variables.
  To use all features and third-party integrations, also add the optional variables.
  

  .env:

  # Used in api/server/app.ts, REQUIRED
  MONGO_URL="xxxxxx"
  MONGO_URL_TEST="xxxxxx"
  SESSION_SECRET="xxxxxx"
  
  # Used in api/server/google.ts, REQUIRED
  Google_clientID="xxxxxx"
  Google_clientSecret="xxxxxx"
  
  # Used in api/server/aws-s3.ts and api/server/aws-ses.ts, OPTIONAL
  Amazon_accessKeyId="xxxxxx"
  Amazon_secretAccessKey="xxxxxx"
  
  # Used in api/server/models/Invitation.ts and api/server/models/User.ts, OPTIONAL
  EMAIL_SUPPORT_FROM_ADDRESS="xxxxxx"
  
  # Used in api/server/mailchimp.ts, OPTIONAL
  MAILCHIMP_API_KEY="xxxxxx"
  MAILCHIMP_REGION="xxxxxx"
  MAILCHIMP_SAAS_ALL_LIST_ID="xxxxxx"
  

  Important: The above environmental variables are available on the server only. You should add your .env file to .gitignore inside the api folder so that your secret keys are not stored on a remote Github repo.

  • To get MONGO_URL and MONGO_URL_TEST, we recommend a free MongoDB at mLab.
  • Specify your own secret key for Express session SESSION_SECRET: https://github.com/expressjs/session#secret
  • Get Google_clientID and Google_clientSecret by following the official OAuth tutorial.
    Important: For Google OAuth app, callback URL is: http://localhost:8000/oauth2callback
    Important: You have to enable Google+ API in your Google Cloud Platform account.

• Once .env is created, you can run the api app. Navigate to the api folder, run yarn to add all packages, then run the command below:

  yarn dev
  

Running app app:

• Navigate to the app folder, run yarn to add all packages, then run the command below and navigate to http://localhost:3000:

  GA_TRACKING_ID=UA-xxxxxxxxx-x yarn dev
  

  • To get GA_TRACKING_ID, set up Google Analytics and follow these instructions to find your tracking ID.

  You are welcome to remove Google Analytics integration or pass universally available variables inside the code. If you do so, your command to run app will be:

  yarn dev
  

Internal and external API requests will be sent from http://localhost:3000 to http://localhost:8000.

Deploy

To deploy the two apps (api and app), follow the instructions below.

• Inside the api folder, create a now.json file with the following content:

  {
    "env": {
        "NODE_ENV": "production"
    },
    "dotenv": true,
    "alias": "saas-api.async-await.com",
    "scale": {
      "sfo1": {
        "min": 1,
        "max": 1
      }
    }
  }
  

  Remember to edit now.json so it reflects your domain.

• Inside the app folder, create a now.json file with the following content:

  {
    "env": {
        "NODE_ENV": "production",
        "GA_TRACKING_ID": "UA-xxxxxxxxx-x",
        "PRODUCTION_URL_APP": "https://saas-app.async-await.com",
        "PRODUCTION_URL_API": "https://saas-api.async-await.com"
    },
    "alias": "saas-app.async-await.com",
    "scale": {
      "sfo1": {
        "min": 1,
        "max": 1
      }
    }
  }
  

  Remember to edit now.json so it reflects your GA_TRACKING_ID and domains.

• Follow these simple steps to deploy each app to Now cloud by Zeit.

Learn how to configure and scale your deployment: Now docs.

You are welcome to deploy to any cloud provider. We plan to publish a tutorial for AWS Elastic Beanstalk.

Built with

• React
• Material-UI
• Next
• MobX
• Express
• Mongoose
• MongoDB
• Typescript

For more detail, check package.json files in both app and api folders.

To customize styles, check this guide.

Screenshots

Dashboard showing Topic > Discussion > Post:

Adding a Post, Markdown vs. HTML view:

Settings for Team Members:

Settings for Personal Profile:

Menu dropdown to switch between Teams:

Showcase

Check out projects built with the code in this open source app. Feel free to add your own project by creating a pull request.

• Retaino by Earl Lee : Save, annotate, review, and share great web content. Receive smart email digests to retain key information.
• Async homepage and blog: Communication tool for engineering teams to achieve deep work.
• Builder Book: Open source web app to publish documentation or books. Built with React, Material-UI, Next, Express, Mongoose, MongoDB.
• Harbor: Open source web app that allows anyone with a Gmail account to automatically charge for advice sent via email.

Contributing

If you'd like to contribute, check our todo list for features you can discuss and add. To report a bug, create an issue.

Want to support this project? Sign up at async and/or buy our book.

If you're interested in hiring our team to build custom SaaS features, fill out our form.

Team

• Kelly Burke
• Delgermurun Purevkhuu
• Timur Zhiyentayev

License

All code in this repository is provided under the MIT License.

Project structure

Structure for api app:

├── server
│   ├── api
│   │   ├── admin.ts
│   │   ├── index.ts
│   │   ├── public.ts
│   │   ├── team-leader.ts
│   │   ├── team-member.ts
│   ├── models
│   │   ├── Discussion.ts
│   │   ├── EmailTemplate.ts
│   │   ├── Invitation.ts
│   │   ├── Post.ts
│   │   ├── Purchase.ts
│   │   ├── Team.ts
│   │   ├── Topic.ts
│   │   ├── User.ts
│   ├── utils
│   │   ├── slugify.ts
│   ├── app.ts
│   ├── aws-s3.ts
│   ├── aws-ses.ts
│   ├── google.ts
│   ├── logs.ts
│   ├── mailchimp.ts
│   ├── stripe.ts
├── static
├── test/server/utils
├── .eslintrc.js
├── .gitignore
├── .npmignore
├── nodemon.js             
├── package.json
├── tsconfig.json
├── yarn.lock

Structure for app app:

├── components
│   ├── common
│   │   ├── ActiveLink.tsx
│   │   ├── AutoComplete.tsx
│   │   ├── AvatarwithMenu.tsx
│   │   ├── Confirm.tsx
│   │   ├── LoginButton.tsx
│   │   ├── MenuWithLinks.tsx
│   │   ├── MenuWithMenuItems.tsx
│   │   ├── Notifier.tsx
│   │   ├── SettingList.tsx
│   ├── discussions
│   │   ├── CreateDiscussionForm.tsx
│   │   ├── DiscussionActionMenu.tsx
│   │   ├── DiscussionList.tsx
│   │   ├── EditDiscussionForm.tsx
│   ├── posts
│   │   ├── PostContent.tsx
│   │   ├── PostDetail.tsx
│   │   ├── PostEditor.tsx
│   │   ├── PostForm.tsx
│   ├── teams
│   │   ├── InviteMember.tsx
│   ├── topics
│   │   ├── CreateTopicForm.tsx
│   │   ├── EditTopicForm.tsx
│   │   ├── TopicActionMenu.tsx
│   │   ├── TopicList.tsx
├── lib
│   ├── api
│   │   ├── admin.ts
│   │   ├── getRootUrl.ts
│   │   ├── makeQueryString.ts
│   │   ├── public.ts
│   │   ├── sendRequestAndGetResponse.ts
│   │   ├── team-leader.ts
│   │   ├── team-member.ts
│   ├── store
│   │   ├── discussion.ts
│   │   ├── index.ts
│   │   ├── invitation.ts
│   │   ├── post.ts
│   │   ├── team.ts
│   │   ├── topic.ts
│   │   ├── user.ts
│   ├── confirm.ts
│   ├── context.ts
│   ├── env.js
│   ├── gtag.js
│   ├── notifier.ts
│   ├── sharedStyles.ts
│   ├── withAuth.tsx
│   ├── withLayout.tsx
│   ├── withStore.tsx
├── pages
│   ├── discussions
│   │   ├── detail.tsx
│   ├── settings
│   │   ├── create-team.tsx
│   │   ├── team-billing.tsx
│   │   ├── team-members.tsx
│   │   ├── team-profile.tsx
│   │   ├── your-profile.tsx
│   ├── topics
│   │   ├── detail.tsx
│   ├── _document.tsx
│   ├── invitation.tsx
│   ├── login.tsx
├── server
│   ├── app.ts
│   ├── routesWithSlug.ts
├── static
│   ├── robots.txt
├── .eslintrc.js
├── .gitignore
├── .npmignore
├── next.config.js
├── nodemon.json
├── package.json
├── tsconfig.json
├── tsconfig.server.json
├── yarn.lock