A lean, fully managed, zero-ops stack optimised for speed to market - covering every layer from coding to security.
Originally spotted as a screenshot circulating in the indie hacker community, this stack represents a pragmatic, modern approach to building a SaaS product without a dedicated DevOps team.
The Stack at a Glance
| Tool | Role | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Claude | AI coding assistant | claude.ai |
| Supabase | Backend + auth | supabase.com |
| Vercel | Deployment | vercel.com |
| Porkbun | Domain registrar | porkbun.com |
| Stripe | Payments | stripe.com |
| GitHub | Version control | github.com |
| Resend | Transactional email | resend.com |
| shadcn/ui | UI components | ui.shadcn.com |
| PostHog | Product analytics | posthog.com |
| Sentry | Error tracking | sentry.io |
| Upstash | Redis (serverless) | upstash.com |
| n8n | Workflow automation | n8n.io |
| Playwright | End-to-end testing | playwright.dev |
| Snyk | Security scanning (free) | snyk.io |
Tool Breakdown
Claude - AI Coding Assistant
Claude handles the heavy lifting of code generation, refactoring, and pair programming. Rather than replacing the developer, it acts as an always-available senior engineer to bounce ideas off, generate boilerplate, and debug tricky logic.
Supabase - Backend + Auth
Supabase gives you a full Postgres database, row-level security, real-time subscriptions, file storage, and auth - all out of the box. It’s the open-source Firebase alternative that doesn’t lock you into a proprietary data format. For a solo founder or small team, it eliminates the need to build and maintain a backend from scratch.
Vercel - Deployment
Vercel is the de facto deployment platform for Next.js apps. Zero-config deploys, automatic preview environments on every PR, and edge-first infrastructure make it the fastest path from git push to live URL.
Porkbun - Domain Registrar
A budget-friendly alternative to GoDaddy or Namecheap. Porkbun consistently offers some of the cheapest domain renewal prices and includes free WHOIS privacy on all domains - something many registrars charge extra for.
Stripe - Payments
The industry standard for SaaS billing. Stripe handles one-off payments, subscriptions, usage-based billing, invoicing, and webhooks. Its developer experience and documentation are class-leading, and the dashboard makes it easy to manage customers without custom tooling.
GitHub - Version Control
The source of truth for the codebase. GitHub also handles CI/CD via GitHub Actions, code review via pull requests, and project management via Issues and Projects. For most indie projects, it’s the only project management tool you’ll need.
Resend - Transactional Email
A modern, developer-first alternative to SendGrid or Mailgun. Resend has a clean API, React Email integration for templating, and a generous free tier. Perfect for sending welcome emails, password resets, and notifications without wrestling with legacy email infrastructure.
shadcn/ui - UI Components
Not a traditional component library - shadcn/ui gives you copy-paste components built on Radix UI primitives and styled with Tailwind CSS. Because you own the code, you can customise everything without fighting against an opinionated design system.
PostHog - Product Analytics
An open-source alternative to Mixpanel or Amplitude. PostHog tracks user behaviour, funnels, session recordings, A/B tests, and feature flags - all in one platform. The self-hostable option is a bonus for privacy-conscious teams, but the cloud version is generous enough for most early-stage products.
Sentry - Error Tracking
Sentry catches exceptions before your users report them. It captures full stack traces, breadcrumbs of user actions leading up to the error, and performance traces. The free tier covers most small projects comfortably.
Upstash - Redis (Serverless)
Serverless Redis with a pay-per-request model. Upstash is ideal for rate limiting, caching, queues, and session storage in a serverless environment where a traditional Redis instance would be overkill. It integrates natively with Vercel Edge Functions and Next.js middleware.
n8n - Workflow Automation
n8n (pronounced “nodemation”) is an open-source workflow automation platform that connects your tools together without glue code. Think of it as the automation layer that ties the rest of the stack together - triggering Resend emails based on Stripe events, syncing PostHog data, or chaining AI calls via Claude. Unlike Zapier, which charges per task, n8n gives you unlimited executions when self-hosted. In 2026, its native AI Agent node makes it particularly powerful for building agentic workflows that chain multiple LLM calls together.
Playwright - End-to-End Testing
Playwright is a modern automation testing tool developed by Microsoft that automates browser interactions across Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit using a single API. It fits naturally into this stack via GitHub Actions for CI/CD - every push can trigger a full browser test suite across Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. Its auto-waiting mechanism eliminates flaky tests, and built-in features like screenshots, video recordings, and the Trace Viewer make debugging failures fast. For a TypeScript-first project, Playwright is the natural choice.
Snyk - Security Scanning (Free Recommendation)
Snyk is the recommended free security tool for this stack. It integrates directly with GitHub to scan every pull request for dependency vulnerabilities, flagging issues before they reach production. Snyk’s interface helps trace the origin of each issue, confirm exploit maturity, and recommend fixed versions - making it practical for managing vulnerabilities directly from the dependency tree. The free tier covers unlimited open-source scans and GitHub PR checks, which is more than enough for an indie SaaS. It pairs well with Sentry (already in the stack) - Sentry catches runtime errors, Snyk catches security vulnerabilities before they ship.
Why This Stack Works
This stack is 100% serverless and fully managed. That means:
- No VMs to patch or maintain
- No DevOps engineer required
- Near-zero fixed costs at low traffic
- Generous free tiers across every tool to get started
It reflects a broader trend in 2026 where the line between backend and infrastructure has blurred. A solo developer or small team can now ship a production-grade SaaS product that would have required a team of five just a few years ago.
Strengths
- Generous free tiers across all tools
- Zero-ops - no servers or infrastructure to manage
- Strong developer experience and community support
- Fast to launch and iterate
Trade-offs
- Vendor lock-in across multiple SaaS providers
- Costs scale quickly at high traffic volumes
- Less control compared to self-hosted equivalents
The Pragmatic Takeaway
Ship the product. Optimise when the data tells you to.
Redis cache layers, CDN configuration, read replicas - these are all legitimate optimisations, but for a product without meaningful traffic the performance difference is invisible to users. This stack lets you focus entirely on the product until you have the users to justify more complexity.