Simulacrum vs Supastarter vs ShipFast: an honest comparison
Factual comparison across templates, databases, auth, delivery model, and where each product shines.
Victor Doyle
Simulacrum
TL;DR
- ShipFast — Strong SaaS marketing starter; Git clone workflow; MongoDB or Supabase.
- Supastarter — SaaS-focused with RBAC and multi-tenancy; Prisma or Drizzle.
- Simulacrum — Seven template types, four database adapters, template-native admin dashboards, CLI (
npx) delivery, better-auth across verticals.
Templates and delivery
If you only ever ship SaaS dashboards, a SaaS-only starter can be enough. If you also ship commerce, blogs, docs, or corporate sites, a multi-template CLI keeps one mental model across client work.
Databases
Simulacrum targets Supabase, Drizzle, Prisma, and raw PostgreSQL with a unified adapter interface—plus SQLite for lightweight scenarios. Compare that list to each alternative’s supported stacks when you standardize on Postgres variants versus Mongo.
Honest strengths
ShipFast — Fast to market for indie SaaS MVPs; large community mindshare.
Supastarter — Mature SaaS feature set; good when you want Git-based delivery with a CLI helper.
Simulacrum — Breadth of templates + adapter swaps without forking seven repos.
Where we invest
Template-specific dashboards, Playwright coverage across templates, and a single license that amortizes across unlimited projects within tier rules—built for agencies that rotate between verticals.