MakerKit vs Eden Stack: Which SaaS Boilerplate Fits Your Project?

MakerKit is one of the most established SaaS starter kits on the market. It has been around since 2022, supports multiple tech stacks, and has powered hundreds of production applications. It is a serious contender, and I want to give it a fair comparison.

Eden Stack is what I built as an alternative. It makes a set of deliberate tradeoffs: fewer choices, deeper integrations, and an AI-native development experience from day one.

This post walks through how the two compare. I will be honest about where MakerKit wins and where I think Eden Stack offers something better.

The Quick Overview

MakerKit: The Flexible Veteran

MakerKit, created by Giancarlo Buomprisco, is a mature SaaS boilerplate with multiple stack variants. You can choose between Supabase, Drizzle + Better Auth, or Prisma 7 + Better Auth for your data layer, and between Next.js 16 or React Router 7 as your framework. It ships with deep multi-tenancy support, an admin dashboard, three payment providers, and internationalization out of the box. At $299-$349 for the Pro tier (depending on the stack), it targets teams that want flexibility and B2B features.

Eden Stack: The Opinionated AI-Native Kit

Eden Stack is a single, opinionated stack: TanStack Start, Elysia, Eden Treaty, Neon PostgreSQL, and Drizzle. Instead of offering multiple paths, it goes deep on one. It includes 40+ Claude skills for agentic development, Inngest background jobs, PostHog analytics, and Sentry error tracking. At $99, it is the most affordable option in its class, designed for technical founders who want to build with AI assistance from the start.

Philosophy: Flexibility vs. Focus

This is the fundamental difference between these two kits, and it shapes every other tradeoff.

MakerKit gives you options. Three ORM/database combinations, two frameworks, three payment providers, and a plugin system for extending functionality. This is genuinely powerful if you have strong preferences about your stack or need to match an existing team's expertise. The downside is that maintaining three stack variants means spreading effort across multiple codebases.

Eden Stack gives you one path. TanStack Start for the frontend, Elysia for the API, Drizzle with Neon for the database, Stripe for payments. Every integration is tested against every other integration. The 40+ Claude skills encode knowledge about how these specific tools work together. The tradeoff is obvious: if you strongly prefer Next.js or Prisma, Eden Stack is not the right fit.

Feature Comparison

Where MakerKit Wins

I want to be straightforward about this. MakerKit has clear advantages in several areas.

Multi-tenancy and B2B Features

Both templates include multi-tenancy. Eden Stack ships workspaces with roles (owner/admin/member), invitations, and a workspace switcher via Better Auth's organization plugin. MakerKit goes deeper: more granular RBAC, per-seat billing tied to organizations, an admin dashboard with user impersonation, and years of iteration on B2B edge cases. If you need deep multi-tenancy with seat-based billing and admin tooling, MakerKit's implementation is more mature.

Stack Flexibility

Some teams have strong opinions about their tools, and MakerKit respects that. If your team already knows Next.js and Prisma, you can start with a familiar stack. If you prefer Supabase for its real-time features and managed auth, that option exists. Eden Stack only offers one path.

Payment Provider Options

MakerKit supports Stripe, Lemon Squeezy, and Paddle. This matters if you sell to international markets where Paddle handles VAT/sales tax as a Merchant of Record, or if you prefer Lemon Squeezy's simpler pricing model. Eden Stack only supports Stripe.

Internationalization

Built-in i18n is table stakes for products targeting non-English markets. MakerKit includes it. Eden Stack does not.

Admin Dashboard

The super admin panel with user impersonation is genuinely useful for customer support. Being able to see exactly what a user sees when they report a bug saves real debugging time.

Where Eden Stack Wins

Price

Eden Stack costs $99. MakerKit's Pro tier ranges from $299 to $349 depending on the stack variant, and the Teams tier goes up to $649. That is 3-6x more expensive. For solo founders and early-stage projects, this difference is meaningful.

Background Jobs

This is a significant gap in MakerKit's offering. Modern SaaS applications need durable background processing for tasks like sending emails after signup, processing webhook events reliably, syncing data with third-party APIs, and running scheduled maintenance. Eden Stack includes Inngest with pre-built patterns for all of these. With MakerKit, you need to build or integrate this yourself.

AI-Native Development

Eden Stack ships with 40+ Claude skills that encode institutional knowledge about how the stack works. These are not just documentation. They are structured instructions that help AI agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex) write correct code for your specific stack. MakerKit has added MCP server support and cursor rules more recently, but the depth is not comparable. Eden Stack's skills cover everything from database migrations to Stripe webhook handling to email template creation.

End-to-End Type Safety

Eden Treaty provides compile-time type safety from your Elysia API routes all the way to your frontend components. Change an API response shape, and TypeScript immediately tells you every place in your frontend that needs updating. MakerKit offers good type safety through tRPC, but Eden Treaty's approach of deriving client types directly from the server definition eliminates an entire class of runtime errors.

Observability Out of the Box

Eden Stack comes with PostHog analytics and Sentry error tracking pre-configured and integrated. You get event tracking, feature flags, session replay, error boundaries, and performance monitoring from day one. MakerKit offers pluggable analytics (you can connect PostHog, Google Analytics, or Umami) and has a Honeybadger plugin, but the integrations are shallower. Eden Stack's approach means you never ship a feature without observability.

Simplicity Through Opinionation

Having one stack means every decision is already made. There is no "which database adapter should I use?" or "should I pick Next.js or React Router?" moment. The 40+ Claude skills all target the same stack, so AI assistance is more precise. The documentation covers one path deeply rather than three paths broadly. For solo developers and small teams, this reduction in decision fatigue is valuable.

When to Choose MakerKit

MakerKit is the right choice if:

1. You are building a B2B product with teams and organizations. The multi-tenancy, RBAC, and invitation system are mature and battle-tested.
2. Your team already knows Next.js. Starting with a familiar framework eliminates ramp-up time.
3. You need multiple payment providers. Paddle or Lemon Squeezy support can be critical for international sales.
4. You need i18n from day one. Built-in internationalization saves significant effort.
5. You want stack flexibility. Being able to choose between Supabase, Drizzle, and Prisma is genuinely useful if you have preferences.

When to Choose Eden Stack

Eden Stack is the right choice if:

1. You are a solo technical founder or small team. The $99 price point, single opinionated stack, and deep AI support maximize your velocity.
2. You use AI to write code. The 40+ Claude skills make agentic development dramatically more effective than working with a generic boilerplate.
3. You need background jobs. Inngest support for durable workflows, webhook processing, and cron jobs is built in, not bolted on.
4. You value end-to-end type safety. Eden Treaty's compile-time guarantees from API to frontend catch errors before they reach production.
5. You want observability from day one. Pre-configured PostHog and Sentry mean you ship with analytics and error tracking, not without them.
6. You want a modern, non-Next.js stack. TanStack Start + Elysia is a genuinely different architecture that avoids the complexity of React Server Components.

A Note on Maintenance

One thing worth considering: MakerKit maintains three separate stack variants across two frameworks. That is a lot of surface area for a solo maintainer. Eden Stack maintains one stack. This means updates, bug fixes, and new features land faster and are tested more thoroughly against the specific set of tools you are using. Neither approach is inherently better, but it is a tradeoff worth understanding.

Conclusion

MakerKit and Eden Stack solve the same fundamental problem (getting your SaaS to market faster) but make very different bets.

MakerKit bets on flexibility and B2B readiness. It gives you choices, deep multi-tenancy, and a proven track record across hundreds of production apps. If you are building a team-oriented product and want the safety of a mature, established boilerplate, MakerKit delivers.

Eden Stack bets on focus, AI-native development, and operational depth. It picks one stack and goes deep, with background jobs, observability, and 40+ Claude skills that make AI-assisted development genuinely effective. If you are a technical founder who wants to move fast with AI and ship a product that works reliably from day one, Eden Stack is built for that.

Both are legitimate choices. The right one depends on what you are building and how you like to work.