Boilerplates
T3 Stack vs Zero To Shipped: Scaffold or Foundation?
An honest comparison of create-t3-app and Zero To Shipped: what each gives you on day one, what you still have to build, and which one fits your situation.
Search intent
Choose between T3 and a full product boilerplate
Primary keyword: t3 stack vs boilerplate
This comparison is easy to get wrong because the two aren't enemies — Zero To Shipped is built on largely the same philosophy as the T3 stack: TypeScript everywhere, tRPC, Prisma, Tailwind. The real question is whether you want a scaffold to build on, or a product foundation that's already built.
Turn the guide into a product
Skip the SaaS plumbing and ship the web + mobile app.
Zero To Shipped gives you the production Next.js app, Expo mobile app, auth, billing, analytics, email, admin, and deploy paths already connected.
One-time payment. Lifetime updates.
What create-t3-app gives you
create-t3-app is a superb, free scaffold: it wires Next.js, TypeScript, tRPC, Prisma, Tailwind, and an auth library into a clean, typesafe starting point. It deliberately stops there — no payments, no admin, no emails, no multi-tenancy, no mobile app. That restraint is a feature: you get zero opinions you didn't ask for.
- Free, open source, hugely popular, great docs.
- Perfectly wired type safety between tRPC, Prisma, and your components.
- You still build: billing, webhooks, admin, emails, jobs, orgs, deploy story.
What Zero To Shipped gives you
Zero To Shipped starts roughly where T3 ends. The same typesafe core, plus the product layer: auth with roles and invites, multi-tenant workspaces, LemonSqueezy/Stripe-ready billing with verified webhooks, admin panel, transactional email, background jobs, code generators, deploy configs — and an Expo app for iOS/Android sharing the same backend. Plus the course explaining why each decision was made.
- Weeks of product plumbing already done and explained.
- Web + native mobile from one shared backend and type system.
- Paid once, with lifetime updates and a 14-day refund window.
How to choose
Choose T3 if you're learning, building something experimental, or you genuinely enjoy assembling infrastructure. Choose Zero To Shipped if your goal is a revenue-generating product and the 2–4 weeks you'd spend rebuilding billing, admin, and emails is worth more than the price. Many ZTS buyers came from T3 — same taste in stack, less appetite for re-wiring it each time.
- Learning or experimenting → T3, free and clean.
- Shipping a commercial SaaS on a deadline → a full foundation pays for itself.
- Need a mobile app too → that alone usually settles it.
FAQ
Is Zero To Shipped based on the T3 stack?
It shares the same core philosophy and key libraries — TypeScript, tRPC, Prisma, Tailwind on Next.js — but extends them with payments, multi-tenant auth, admin, emails, background jobs, deploy configs, and an Expo mobile app.
Should I use create-t3-app or a paid boilerplate?
Use create-t3-app to learn or experiment for free. Use a paid boilerplate like Zero To Shipped when you're shipping a commercial product and the prebuilt billing, admin, and mobile layers save you weeks you'd rather spend on features.