I've shipped six niche SaaS products in the last 18 months.
Every time I start a new one, I face the same question: what goes in the stack?
The answer matters. Choose wrong and you'll spend weeks wrestling with deployment. Choose right and you can focus on the product itself.
Here's the niche SaaS tech stack I keep reaching for in 2026, and why.
The Core: Postgres, Next.js, Vercel
Postgres is the database. Next.js is the framework. Vercel is the host.
That's the foundation for every product I build at Marvanova.
Postgres because it's boring in the best way. Rock solid. Relational. Full-text search built in. JSON support when you need it. No surprises.
Next.js because it does everything. Server-side rendering. API routes. Static generation. File-based routing. TypeScript support out of the box. The React ecosystem without the decision paralysis.
Vercel because deployment is one command. No DevOps. No server config. No downtime. It just works.
This stack lets me go from idea to live product in days, not months.
AI Integration: OpenAI and Anthropic
Most of my products use AI somewhere in the flow.
Lucuma screens CVs. PostLift writes LinkedIn posts. dunlin Scout enriches company data.
I use OpenAI's GPT-4o for most tasks. Fast. Reliable. Good at following instructions.
For longer context or more complex reasoning, I reach for Anthropic's Claude. The 200k context window is genuinely useful when you're processing entire documents.
Both APIs are straightforward. Both have generous rate limits on paid tiers. Both let me ship features that would have taken a full ML team two years ago.
Payments: Stripe
Stripe is the only payment processor I use.
The API is excellent. The documentation is better. Subscription management, invoicing, tax handling, all built in.
I use Stripe Checkout for simple flows and Stripe Elements when I need more control.
Every Marvanova product with paid tiers runs on Stripe. Lucuma's £99 to £799 plans. dunlin Radar's £149 subscription. PostLift's paid features.
It's never been the bottleneck.
Authentication: Clerk
I used to roll my own auth. Email verification, password resets, session management, all custom.
Never again.
Clerk handles all of it. Email, Google, LinkedIn sign-in. Magic links. Multi-factor. User management dashboard.
It takes ten minutes to set up and I never think about it again.
For niche SaaS, that matters. You're not building Facebook. You don't need custom auth logic. You need people to be able to sign in and get to work.
Styling: Tailwind and shadcn/ui
Tailwind for utility classes. shadcn/ui for pre-built components.
This combination is absurdly productive.
Tailwind lets me style directly in JSX without context switching. No separate CSS files. No class name conflicts. Responsive design with breakpoint prefixes.
shadcn/ui gives me copy-paste components that look good and work properly. Modals, dropdowns, forms, all consistent and accessible.
I don't write much custom CSS anymore. I don't need to.
Email: Resend
Transactional emails used to be painful.
Resend makes them simple.
React-based email templates. Send via API. Webhooks for delivery events. Clean dashboard to see what's going out.
I use it for onboarding sequences, notifications, weekly digests. It's reliable and the developer experience is excellent.
Analytics: Plausible
Google Analytics is overkill for niche SaaS.
Plausible is lightweight, privacy-friendly, and gives me the metrics I actually care about. Page views, referrers, conversion funnels.
No cookie banners. No tracking consent forms. No bloat.
It loads fast and doesn't slow down my products.
When I Reach for Something Else
This stack covers 90% of what I build.
Sometimes I need more.
For background jobs and queues, I use Inngest. Event-driven, reliable, good observability.
For PDFs, I use Puppeteer or Playwright. Headless Chrome, render HTML to PDF, works every time.
For file storage, I use Vercel Blob or Cloudflare R2. Both are cheap and easy to integrate.
But those are additions, not replacements. The core stack stays the same.
Why This Stack Works for Niche SaaS
Speed matters when you're building niche products.
Your market is small. You need to validate quickly. You can't spend months on architecture.
This stack lets me ship a full product in two to three weeks. Live, deployed, taking payments.
It's boring technology that works. Postgres isn't new. Next.js isn't exotic. Stripe isn't revolutionary.
That's the point.
I'm not trying to build the most interesting tech stack. I'm trying to build products people will pay for.
The best niche SaaS tech stack is the one that gets out of your way.
What I'd Avoid in 2026
Here's what I don't use.
MongoDB. Relational data is everywhere in SaaS. Postgres handles it better.
Custom auth. Life's too short. Use Clerk or Auth0.
Self-hosted infrastructure. I'm a solo founder. I don't have time to be a sysadmin.
GraphQL for simple CRUD apps. REST is faster to build and easier to reason about.
Microservices. You're not Netflix. You don't have Netflix problems. Keep it monolithic until you actually need to split it.
The goal isn't to use cutting-edge tech. The goal is to ship products that solve real problems.
This stack does that.
How to Choose Your Own Stack
If you're building niche SaaS, here's what I'd recommend.
Start with boring, proven technology. Postgres over MongoDB. Next.js over rolling your own React setup. Vercel over AWS.
Choose tools with excellent documentation. You'll be reading docs late at night when something breaks. Make sure they're good.
Pick platforms that scale with usage, not effort. Vercel scales automatically. Postgres on Supabase or Neon scales with a slider. Stripe handles millions of transactions without you touching anything.
Avoid anything that requires dedicated maintenance. No self-hosted databases. No servers you have to patch. No custom build pipelines.
And most importantly: use what you know.
If you're already comfortable with Rails, don't switch to Next.js just because I use it. Your familiarity with the stack is an asset. Don't throw it away.
The Stack That Ships
This is the niche SaaS tech stack I've used to build Lucuma, PostLift, dunlin Scout, dunlin Radar, SEN Letters UK, and Graft'd.
Postgres. Next.js. Vercel. Stripe. Clerk. Tailwind. Resend. Plausible.
It's not sexy. It's not novel. It's not going to impress anyone at a conference.
But it works.
And it keeps getting products out the door.
If you're building your own niche SaaS and want to talk through technical decisions, email me at hello@marvanova.com. Always happy to share what's worked.