Gravity vs Makerkit
Both are boilerplates tools. Here is what separates them.
What Gravity is
Gravity is a prebuilt SaaS starter codebase for Node.js and React, sold as a downloadable source code package rather than a hosted service. It ships in two architectures: a Node.js build with a separate backend and frontend, and a Next.js build that runs as one unified application. Every published plan bundles the Node.js server, a React web client, a React Native mobile client, an Astro website template and Mission Control, the admin dashboard covering user management, feedback, events and logs. The licence terms matter as much as the feature list. Plans are one-time payments: Starter at 199 US dollars, Pro at 299 and Elite at 499. Each permits use in between one and three commercial applications depending on which plan was bought, so the number of products you may ship is fixed at purchase. Updates are included for one year from purchase and delivered through a private GitHub repository that buyers merge into their own project. Renewing that window costs 195 US dollars per year if you renew before it expires and 250 US dollars per year afterwards. Refunds are not issued under any circumstances, and filing a chargeback terminates the licence and permanently disables the account. Only the developers covered by the licence may use the code for development work, and reselling, renting, leasing, sublicensing or redistributing the source is forbidden. You may deploy Gravity inside applications owned and operated by your own clients, which makes it usable for agency work, but you may not build a product with the same or substantially the same primary function as Gravity itself. Billing is implemented on Stripe and covers subscriptions, free accounts, seat billing and usage billing, with 3D Secure handled for European cards. Free trials are set through a trial period value on the Stripe plan and apply only at first signup, not on plan upgrades. Authorisation ships with five permission levels (master, owner, admin, user and developer), and only the owner role can edit billing details, close the account or create and delete API keys. The REST API accepts both JWT bearer tokens and API keys sent as Basic authentication, and keys only work on endpoints that declare a scope such as account read or user read. One decision worth weighing: API keys are stored in the database in plain text so that a user can retrieve a lost key. Database access goes through Knex, with MySQL, Postgres and MongoDB named in the stack. The web client uses React, Vite, Tailwind, Shadcn and Radix UI, and social sign on uses Passport.js in the Node.js build and Arctic in the Next.js build. Transactional email goes through Nodemailer with Mailgun as the default transport, and the deployment guide names Heroku and Digital Ocean. A Custom plan adds between one and five bespoke features, deployment assistance and transfer of IP ownership, but carries no published price.
What Makerkit is
Makerkit sells production-ready SaaS starter kits: TypeScript codebases that arrive with authentication, billing and multi-tenancy already wired up, so those foundations do not have to be rebuilt for every new project. Variants ship for Next.js, React Router, Remix, TanStack Start and React Native, and the documented kits include next-supabase-turbo, nextjs-drizzle, nextjs-prisma, react-native-supabase, react-router-supabase-turbo, tanstack-drizzle and supamode. The Supabase stack uses Supabase auth, storage and database with Postgres row level security. The Drizzle and Prisma stacks instead pair Better Auth with a bring your own database setup, and the Drizzle kits can target MySQL and SQLite as well as Postgres. What comes in the box is the plumbing most SaaS products need. Multi-tenant organisations, team management and role based access control are built in. Authentication covers email and password, magic links, passkeys using WebAuthn, and TOTP based multi-factor authentication, with social sign in through Google, GitHub, Facebook, X and Discord. Billing can run on Stripe, Lemon Squeezy, Paddle or Polar, and a Stripe customer portal is connected so that subscribers manage their own plans. A super admin dashboard handles user and organisation management, account impersonation and account disabling. Around that sit the parts that tend to get postponed. The interface is built from Shadcn UI components on Tailwind CSS v4, and a Figma UI kit is bundled with the purchase. Each kit includes an SEO ready blog, a documentation section and a changelog, with Keystatic and WordPress available as CMS options alongside a custom CMS client. End to end tests are set up with Playwright, with separate unit and database test tooling, and local email is caught by Inbucket and Mailpit. The codebase runs on strict TypeScript compiler settings. For anyone working with coding assistants, the kits ship an MCP server plus agent rule files for Claude Code, Cursor, Codex and Gemini. Pricing is a one-off payment rather than a subscription, and the same figures apply across the Supabase, Drizzle and Prisma stacks. The Pro licence is 349 USD, covers one user, allows unlimited projects and includes Discord community access. The Teams licence is 649 USD, covers up to five collaborators, also allows unlimited projects, and adds a private Discord channel and priority support. One purchase includes all future updates to the kit.
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