ShipFast vs HeartCo: Which SaaS Boilerplate Should You Choose in 2026?

Why compare these two boilerplates?

ShipFast and HeartCo are both Next.js SaaS boilerplates sold as a one-time purchase to developers who want to skip rebuilding the foundations. But they serve fairly different needs, and picking the wrong one can cost you weeks of refactoring later.

This comparison is honest: ShipFast is excellent at what it does. So is HeartCo. The real question is: for your specific project, which one actually saves you more time?

Overview

Tech stack: the differences that matter

ShipFast

ShipFast is deliberately flexible: you can pick Prisma or Mongoose, REST or tRPC, and different auth solutions. That's great to get started, but it also means the integrations aren't as polished end-to-end.

// ShipFast: simple and direct
const user = await User.findOne({ email });
if (!user) return { error: "User not found" };

HeartCo

HeartCo is opinionated: tRPC for every route, Prisma 7 with versioned migrations, NextAuth v5 with cookies already configured for production.

// HeartCo: end-to-end type safety, an enriched context
export const userRouter = createTRPCRouter({
  getProfile: protectedProcedure.query(async ({ ctx }) => {
    // ctx.session.user is typed, ctx.orgDb is scoped
    return ctx.orgDb.user.findFirst({
      where: { id: ctx.session.user.id },
      include: { organization: true },
    });
  }),
});

The ctx type is the same across every router, so you don't relearn the context in every file.

Authentication

Both rely on NextAuth. HeartCo solves a common NextAuth v5 production issue out of the box:

// HeartCo: getToken correctly configured for NextAuth v5
// NextAuth v5 renames cookies from __Secure-next-auth.* to __Secure-authjs.*
const token = await getToken({
  req: request,
  cookieName: "__Secure-authjs.session-token",
  secret: process.env.AUTH_SECRET,
});
// Without an explicit cookieName → token is null in production, auth silently breaks

That kind of detail, undocumented in most places, is exactly what a boilerplate should already have solved for you.

Multi-tenancy

This is the biggest point of divergence between the two.

ShipFast: no multi-tenancy

ShipFast is built for single-tenant applications: one "account" per deployment, or independent individual users. If you're building a tool where every user stands alone, that's a perfect fit.

But if you're building a SaaS where one organization can have several users with different roles and isolated data, ShipFast doesn't give you that out of the box.

HeartCo: multi-tenant by default

// Every business model carries organizationId
model Client {
  id             String       @id @default(cuid())
  organizationId String       // ← guaranteed isolation
  name           String
  organization   Organization @relation(...)
  @@index([organizationId])
}
 
// Every read is auto-scoped
const clients = await ctx.orgDb.client.findMany();
// → SQL: WHERE "organizationId" = 'org_abc123'

You don't have to think about isolation. It's structural.

Business-domain modules

ShipFast

ShipFast gives you the foundations: auth, payments, email, landing page. After that, you build your entire product yourself.

HeartCo

HeartCo ships the business modules a full B2B SaaS actually needs — as ~70 flat router files, domain names kept in French like the rest of the product's business vocabulary:

src/server/api/routers/
├── facturation.ts   ← Invoices, credit notes, dunning
├── devis.ts         ← Quotes and estimates
├── crm.ts           ← Clients, prospects, contacts
├── comptabilite.ts  ← Accounting reports and exports
├── rh.ts            ← Employees, leave, payslips
├── bank.ts          ← Bank integration
└── ... 60+ other routers

These aren't stubs: it's production code with Zod validation, RBAC, multi-tenancy, and tests. You customize it, you don't rewrite it.

Artificial intelligence

ShipFast doesn't ship AI natively. HeartCo builds in Mistral AI:

// src/lib/ai/mistral.ts: already configured
import { Mistral } from "@mistralai/mistralai";
 
export async function extractInvoiceData(text: string) {
  const client = new Mistral({ apiKey: env.MISTRAL_API_KEY });
 
  const response = await client.chat.complete({
    model: "mistral-small-latest",
    messages: [
      {
        role: "user",
        content: `Extract the information from this invoice: ${text}`,
      },
    ],
  });
 
  return parseInvoiceFromAI(response.choices[0]?.message.content);
}

B2B use cases for AI are plentiful: extracting data from documents, automatic summaries, drafting client emails, generating reports.

Performance and architecture

Both ShipFast and HeartCo use Next.js 15's App Router. The difference is in the conventions:

HeartCo enforces:

• Server Components for data pages
• Client Components only for interactivity
• ctx.orgDb for reads (never ctx.db in regular routers)
• TRPCError for every error (never throw new Error())

These conventions are enforceable with ESLint and catchable in code review. In a team, that matters.

Pricing and business model

ShipFast pricing checked in September 2026. It changes over time: confirm it on the official site before deciding. Up-to-date details live in our ShipFast comparison.

HeartCo is one-time per developer, not per project. If you build several SaaS products, that's an advantage.

Who should pick what

Pick ShipFast if:

• You're launching a B2C SaaS (a tool, a mobile app, a consumer service)
• You want the largest community to find help in
• Your project doesn't need multi-tenancy or complex RBAC
• You prefer a light base and building everything from scratch

Pick HeartCo if:

• You're building a B2B SaaS with organizations, roles, and permissions
• You need real business modules out of the box (invoicing, CRM, HR)
• You want to bake AI into your product without starting from zero
• You want RBAC that goes beyond "admin / user"

The real question

The right question isn't "ShipFast or HeartCo." It's "what will my SaaS need in 6 months?"

If you'll be implementing multi-tenancy, a permission system, and business modules in six months anyway, you might as well start from a base that already has them. Retrofitting multi-tenancy onto an existing project is one of the most painful migrations there is.

If your SaaS is a simple tool with independent users, ShipFast will get you moving faster.

Both are good code. Pick based on your destination, not your starting point.

Go further

• Full comparison: HeartCo vs ShipFast
• Which Next.js SaaS boilerplate should you pick in 2026? (full comparison)
• All HeartCo comparisons
• Multi-tenant isolation with Prisma and tRPC