Why I built a backend-only SaaS starter kit when everyone else builds full-stack

Every SaaS starter kit I looked at came with a frontend attached. ShipFast. MakerKit. SupaStarter. All of them assume you want Next.js. All of them bundle a UI you may not need, a framework you may not want, and opinions about your frontend you never asked for. I didn't plan to build a backend-only kit. It just ended up that way. How it started I was starting a new project and needed a backend foundation. Auth. Billing. Webhooks. Email. Database setup. The same things every SaaS needs. I needed a backend foundation. I knew what I wanted it to look like — clean architecture, proper tests, everything wired. So I built it. When it was done, I packaged it. So I built it myself. And packaged it so others could use it too. When I looked at what I'd built, it was pure backend. No pages. No components. No frontend framework opinions. Just a clean Node.js + TypeScript foundation with everything wired. I didn't make it backend-only as a strategic decision. It just was. What I realized after Once