creativedg

After rebuilding my setup way too many times, I've finally landed on a stack that I don't want to change. Took 6 years to get here, so figured I'd share what works for me.

Here's where it's landed:

Framework: Next.js 16 (App Router) React 19. Server Components, App Router for routing.

Auth: Clerk Magic links, passkeys, MFA, social logins (Google, GitHub, Apple, etc.), user impersonation. It works perfectly with Next.js.

Database: DrizzleORM Type-safe ORM. Works with PostgreSQL, SQLite, MySQL - but personally I prefer PostgreSQL. Drizzle Studio for exploring data, Drizzle Kit for migrations.

Local dev: PGlite This one's underrated. Full Postgres running locally, no Docker needed.

Styling: Tailwind CSS Utility-first, fast iteration.

Forms: React Hook Form + Zod Zod schemas validate on client AND server. Type-safe end-to-end.

Testing: Vitest + Playwright Vitest in browser mode replaced React Testing Library for me. Playwright handles integration, E2E and visual regression. GitHub Actions runs everything on PRs automatically.

Logging: LogTape Universal and unified logging for Browser, server and edge.

Monitoring: Sentry + PostHog Sentry for errors (with Spotlight for local dev - game changer). PostHog for analytics and session replays.

i18n: next-intl Built-in internationalization from day one. i18n-check catches missing translations before they hit prod.

DX tooling:

ESLint Lefthook for git hooks Commitlint + Conventional commits for consistent commits Knip for catching dead code Semantic Release for changelogs Dependabot for dependencies update Security: Arcjet Rate limiting and bot protection without thinking about it.

I put this all together into a setup I reuse - nothing hidden, everything customizable. If anyone's curious, the whole thing is documented here: https://github.com/ixartz/Next-js-Boilerplate

What does your stack look like? Curious if anyone's using different setups.

I started this boilerplate in July 2020 and I’ve been maintaining it for 5 years. It began on Next.js 9 and kept upgrading to Next.js 15+ (App Router), while upgrading the stack over time (Tailwind 1 → 4, ESLint 8, swapping Cypress → Playwright, etc.). The goal is simple: I kept rebuilding the same setup, so I packaged it and kept it updated.

What you get (preconfigured, keep only what you need):

- Next.js 15 (App Router) + TypeScript + Tailwind 4

- Auth with Clerk (magic links, MFA, social, passkeys)

- I18n via next-intl

- DB with Drizzle ORM (PGlite locally)

- Forms with React Hook Form + Zod validation

- Testing: Vitest (unit), Playwright (integration/E2E)

- CI with GitHub Actions; Storybook for UI work

- SEO (Open Graph, JSON-LD, sitemap, robots)

- Observability: Sentry, logging with LogTape, log management & uptime/monitoring

- Security: Arcjet (bot detection, rate limiting, shield rules)

- DX details: ESLint/Prettier, Lefthook + lint-staged, Commitlint, absolute imports, bundle analyzer

- AI code review

It’s free and open source (MIT). Today the project sits around 11.8k GitHub stars and 2.2k forks. I’m still actively maintaining it and adding features.

Repo: https://github.com/ixartz/Next-js-Boilerplate

Why I built it

Spinning up auth, a DB, i18n, tests, and lint/format/CI for each new app was repetitive. This gives me (and hopefully you) a production-ready base in minutes, with opinionated defaults you can start.

I’m open to suggestions and feedback, what would you like to see next? I’ll hang around in the comments to answer questions.