Next-shadcn-dashboard-starter is a free, open source admin dashboard boilerplate for Next.js 16 that ships fully functional features — real data tables, forms, auth, and billing — instead of static demo UI.
What is next-shadcn-dashboard-starter?
Next-shadcn-dashboard-starter is a production-ready admin dashboard starter built by Kiranism with Next.js 16 (App Router), React 19, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS v4, and shadcn/ui on Base UI primitives. It takes environment variables for Clerk authentication and Sentry error tracking as input, and produces a complete dashboard application with auth, organizations, billing, data tables, forms, charts, and additional feature pages. It is MIT-licensed and free for commercial use, with over 6,700 GitHub stars at the time of writing.
Key Features
- Working data tables — TanStack Table with React Query server prefetch and client-side cache, plus nuqs URL state for search, filtering, sorting, and pagination; data is interactive end-to-end.
- Real forms with validation — TanStack Form and Zod, including multi-step and dialog/sheet form patterns, with create/update mutations and cache invalidation on success.
- Clerk authentication — Passwordless sign-in, social logins, and enterprise SSO; account management UI included.
- Multi-tenant organizations — Clerk Organizations support for creating, switching, and managing teams, with team management via OrganizationProfile.
- Billing and plan gating — Clerk Billing for B2B with a pricing table, subscriptions, and a plan-protected "Exclusive" page that uses Clerk's Protect component.
- Analytics overview — Dashboard cards and Recharts graphs, with parallel routes that give each section its own loading and error state.
- Extra feature pages — Kanban board (dnd-kit and Zustand), chat UI, notifications center, and a React Query demo (Pokemon API).
- Cleanup script —
bun run cleanupremoves optional features (folders, dependencies, docs, env entries) in under a minute, with interactive, list, dry-run, and targeted modes.
Who is it for?
- SaaS developers who need a starting point for a customer-facing admin panel with auth, teams, and billing already wired.
- Internal tool builders who need CRUD tables and forms with search, filter, sort, and pagination working out of the box.
- Next.js learners who want a reference implementation of the TanStack Query SSR pattern (server prefetch + HydrationBoundary + useSuspenseQuery) and feature-based folder structure.
- AI coding workflow users who want a codebase with AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, and a bundled Claude Code skill so agents follow the project's conventions.
What can you do with next-shadcn-dashboard-starter?
- SaaS teams: set up a dashboard with Clerk auth, multi-tenant workspaces, and subscription billing, then replace the demo data with real product data.
- Operations teams: build an internal admin panel for managing records, with working tables, forms, and mutations against your backend.
- Designers: restyle the dashboard using the built-in theme system, which uses tweakcn for themes and includes six-plus themes with a header theme switcher.
- Developers learning React Query: study the Pokemon API demo page to see server prefetch and client cache patterns in a minimal example.
How does it work?
To run it, clone the repository, install dependencies with Bun (npm also works), copy env.example.txt to .env.local, add your Clerk and Sentry keys, and run bun run dev. The built-in cleanup script (bun run cleanup --interactive) lets you remove features you don't need, and the project includes Dockerfiles for both Node.js and Bun with standalone output mode.
FAQ
Is it production ready?
Yes. Every feature is a complete execution: authentication, CRUD flows, table search/filter/sort/pagination, and form validation with mutations all function end-to-end. It is a starting point for real applications, not a visual mockup.
Is it free for commercial use?
Yes, the template is MIT-licensed and free for both personal and commercial projects. There are no paid tiers or license keys.
Can I use it without Clerk?
Yes. Run bun run cleanup clerk to remove Clerk authentication (including organizations and billing) and wire in your own auth solution.
Does it support Next.js 16, React 19, and Tailwind CSS v4?
Yes. The template is built on Next.js 16 (App Router), React 19, Tailwind CSS v4, and shadcn/ui on Base UI primitives, and is actively maintained to track new releases.
Can I use npm instead of Bun?
Yes. Bun is preferred, but npm works too, and the repo ships both Node.js and Bun Dockerfiles for deployment.
