Better-T-Stack: The TypeScript CLI That Actually Gets Modern App

Jun 25, 2025

A faster, smarter way to start full-stack apps in 2025

If you’ve ever bootstrapped a Next.js app from scratch, you know the pain.

Setting up TypeScript?
Configuring Prisma, Tailwind, shadcn/ui, and Auth?
Creating your trpc backend structure manually?
Debating folder architecture again?

That setup phase eats hours — even days — before you can ship a single feature. That’s where the Better T Stack CLI changes the game.

Most CLI tools give you a basic setup and leave you to figure out the rest. But here's the thing - modern web development isn't basic anymore. You need type safety from your database to your frontend. You need authentication that doesn't make you want to cry. You need a setup that actually works in production.

That's exactly why I built Better T-Stack.

What Actually Makes This Different

Look, I'm not going to tell you this is revolutionary. It's just a CLI tool that does what other CLI tools should have been doing all along.

It gives you real choices. Want Hono for your backend? Done. Prefer Express? Also done. Need Drizzle with PostgreSQL? You've got it, now do you want to use Prisma and SQLite too? No problem.

Everything is type-safe by default. Your API calls, your database queries, your forms - they all know about each other. Make a change to your database schema and your frontend immediately knows what broke.

The stack actually works together. I spent months making sure TanStack Router plays nice with tRPC, that Better Auth integrates smoothly with Drizzle, and that your API routes don't fight with your frontend routing.

Here's What You Get in 30 Seconds

bash

1npx create-better-t-stack@latest

That's it. One command and you have:

Frontend: React with TanStack Router or Next.js
Backend: Hono, Express, or Fastify with full type safety
Database: Drizzle ORM with PostgreSQL, MySQL, or SQLite
API: tRPC for end-to-end type safety
Auth: Better Auth with multiple providers
Styling: Tailwind CSS with component libraries
Testing: Vitest ready to go
Deployment: Configured for Vercel, Railway, or Docker

better t-stack dev features

But here's the key part - it's not just installed, it's configured. The database talks to the API. The API talks to the frontend. Authentication works across everything. You can start building features immediately.

Why I Actually Built This

I got tired of spending entire days setting up projects. Every new app meant researching the latest best practices, figuring out which versions work together, and debugging configuration issues that shouldn't exist.

The breaking point was when I spent six hours getting TanStack Router to work properly with tRPC and authentication, only to realize I needed to do it all again for the next project.

So I built what I wanted to exist. A CLI that understands how modern TypeScript apps actually work and sets them up correctly from the start.

The Part Nobody Talks About

Most project generators give you a working demo and call it done. But that demo is usually too simple to be useful and too complex to understand quickly.

Better T-Stack includes two real examples:

A todo app - because sometimes you need to see the basics working
An AI chat app - because that's what everyone's building anyway

Both examples show you patterns you'll actually use. How to handle forms, manage state, structure your API, handle errors, and deploy to production.

Getting Started Without the Overwhelm

The interactive setup walks you through each choice and explains why you might want each option. No assumption that you already know the difference between every database or deployment platform.

Want to see what it looks like?

👉 Official site: https://better-t-stack.dev
📦 GitHub: GitHub repo

What People Are Actually Saying

The response has been pretty incredible. We hit 400+ stars on GitHub faster than I expected, and the feedback on Twitter has been consistently positive.

But the best part is seeing people ship actual products with it. When developers tell me they went from idea to deployed app in a weekend instead of a week, that's when I know this solved a real problem.

Final Thoughts

If you're tired of wasting time setting up the same stack over and over — use this once, and you'll never want to start from scratch again.

Try It