For an open source platform for creator memberships, the strongest matches are tryghost/ghost (Ghost is a self-hostable publishing platform that includes a), polarsource/polar (Polar is a comprehensive platform for managing subscriptions, digital) and woocommerce/woocommerce (WooCommerce is a comprehensive eCommerce framework that, when extended). knadh/listmonk and nextjs/saas-starter round out the shortlist. Each is ranked by relevance to your query, popularity and recent activity.
We curate open-source GitHub repositories matching “open source alternatives to patreon”. Results are ranked by relevance to your query — pick filters below to narrow, or refine with AI.
Ghost is an open-source publishing platform and headless content management system designed for professional publishers. It provides a decoupled architecture that separates the content management backend from the front-end delivery layer, allowing users to manage editorial workflows and site data through structured web services. The platform distinguishes itself by integrating a built-in membership and subscription engine, which enables creators to manage gated content, paid tiers, and secure member profiles directly within the system. It also features a dedicated infrastructure for professio
Ghost is a self-hostable publishing platform that includes a native membership and subscription engine, providing the necessary tools for recurring payments, tier-based access control, and newsletter management for creators.
Polar is a digital product monetization engine and subscription management system. It serves as a merchant of record platform that handles global sales tax and VAT compliance, providing the infrastructure for selling subscriptions and one-time digital goods via hosted checkouts and embedded payment flows. The project functions as an entitlement and access manager, automating the granting and restriction of digital benefits, license keys, and third-party platform roles. It includes a dedicated usage-based billing infrastructure that tracks customer activity through meters to apply aggregation
Polar is a comprehensive platform for managing subscriptions, digital products, and access control, providing the necessary infrastructure for creators to monetize their audience through recurring payments and gated benefits.
WooCommerce is a comprehensive eCommerce framework for WordPress that transforms websites into fully functional online stores for physical and digital goods. It serves as a digital storefront manager for product catalogs, inventory, and customer orders across retail and wholesale business models. The system functions as a payment gateway integrator, connecting shops to diverse processors for credit cards, digital wallets, and subscriptions. It also operates as an order fulfillment system for calculating shipping rates, generating labels, and coordinating delivery via third-party couriers, whi
WooCommerce is a comprehensive eCommerce framework that, when extended with membership and subscription plugins, provides the necessary infrastructure for managing recurring payments, tier-based access, and content gating for creators.
Listmonk is a self-hosted email marketing platform and newsletter manager designed for high-volume bulk email distribution and transactional messaging. It provides a centralized system for organizing large subscriber databases and executing automated marketing campaigns directly from your own infrastructure. The platform distinguishes itself through its reliance on a relational database backend, which enables dynamic subscriber segmentation using complex query filtering at the time of delivery. It utilizes a concurrent worker pool to manage high-throughput email dispatch and incorporates a se
Listmonk is a self-hosted email marketing and newsletter management tool, but it lacks the core membership, subscription billing, and tier-based access control features required for a creator platform.
This project is a production-ready boilerplate designed for building subscription-based web applications. It provides a foundational framework for managing user identity, persistent relational data, and recurring billing cycles within a unified development environment. The platform distinguishes itself by integrating secure authentication workflows with automated subscription management. It utilizes a schema-first approach to database interactions, ensuring data consistency through type-safe queries and versioned migrations. By incorporating native support for payment provider APIs, the syste
This repository is a developer-focused boilerplate for building SaaS applications rather than a ready-to-use platform for creators to manage memberships and content gating.
This project is a Next.js SaaS starter kit and billing boilerplate designed for building subscription-based software services. It provides a pre-configured foundation that integrates a PostgreSQL database schema with Stripe to manage recurring billing, tiered pricing models, and customer payment portals. The implementation features a synchronization system that uses webhooks to mirror external product data and subscription states into a local relational database. It includes an authentication layer that links external identity providers to user accounts and manages secure session tracking. T
This is a developer-focused SaaS boilerplate for building subscription software rather than a ready-to-use creator membership platform, meaning you would need to build the content gating and creator dashboard features yourself.
Open SaaS is a full-stack starter kit and development framework designed for building and deploying commercial web applications. It provides a production-ready foundation that integrates essential services, including user authentication, payment processing, file storage, and administrative oversight, into a single cohesive environment. The framework utilizes a declarative configuration approach to define application structure, which automatically generates the necessary boilerplate for both frontend and backend components. By employing database-first schema modeling, it ensures type-safe comm
This is a full-stack development framework and starter kit for building SaaS applications, rather than a pre-built platform specifically designed for managing creator memberships and subscriptions.
This project is a foundational boilerplate for building software-as-a-service applications using Next.js, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS. It provides a pre-configured project structure designed to accelerate the launch of a product. The kit integrates a conversational user interface that renders markdown responses from large language models. It includes a secure identity layer for user registration and session persistence across multiple authentication providers, alongside a billing system for managing tiered pricing plans and real-time payment updates. The technical surface covers a type-safe
This is a SaaS boilerplate designed for building custom applications rather than a pre-built platform for managing creator memberships and subscriptions.
This project is a starter kit for building software as a service applications. It provides a foundational framework for developing scalable products with integrated subscription billing, user management, and automated cloud deployment pipelines. The core architecture centers on a multi-tenant application framework that isolates data and permissions between organizations using team workspaces and role-based access control. It utilizes a GraphQL API to ensure type-safe communication and data consistency between the frontend and backend. The system covers comprehensive identity and access manag
This is a general-purpose SaaS boilerplate for building applications rather than a specialized platform for managing creator memberships and subscriptions.
Mailtrain is a self-hosted newsletter platform and email marketing tool designed for managing subscriber lists and sending automated email campaigns from a private server. It provides a centralized system for coordinating the creation and delivery of recurring email outreach. The platform includes a visual email template builder for creating responsive layouts and a subscriber management system that uses custom fields to organize audiences into targeted segments. Automation is handled through tools that can trigger newsletters based on remote feeds and scheduled events. Performance is tracke
Mailtrain is a self-hosted email marketing and newsletter management tool, but it lacks the core membership, subscription billing, and content gating features required to function as a creator membership platform.
This project is a full-stack TypeScript framework and boilerplate designed for building subscription-based software services. It provides a pre-configured development environment that integrates a React frontend with a Node.js and Express server and a MongoDB data layer. The framework includes integrated modules for managing subscription billing, multi-tenant user management, and secure identity verification via social logins and passwordless authentication. It further enables real-time application synchronization through a WebSocket server for bidirectional data streaming between clients and
This is a full-stack SaaS boilerplate and development framework rather than a ready-to-use creator membership platform, meaning you would need to build the specific creator-facing features yourself using its underlying billing and authentication modules.
Lago is an open-source billing platform designed for managing subscriptions, usage-based metering, and automated invoicing. It functions as a comprehensive system for defining pricing plans, tracking real-time consumption via a metering engine, and controlling feature entitlements based on active customer subscriptions. The platform differentiates itself through a dynamic billing engine that supports hybrid pricing models and a credit-based wallet system for managing prepaid funds. It includes specialized tools for multi-tenant entitlement mapping, allowing operators to tie specific product p
Lago is a billing and usage-based metering engine for SaaS products, but it lacks the creator-focused features like content gating, newsletter integration, and audience management required for a membership platform.
| Repository | Stars | Language | License | Last push |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| tryghost/ghost | 54K | JavaScript | MIT | |
| polarsource/polar | 9.5K | Python | apache-2.0 | |
| woocommerce/woocommerce | 10.4K | PHP | — | |
| knadh/listmonk | 21.6K | Go | AGPL-3.0 | |
| nextjs/saas-starter | 15.9K | TypeScript | MIT | |
| vercel/nextjs-subscription-payments | 7.7K | TypeScript | MIT | |
| wasp-lang/open-saas | 13.4K | TypeScript | mit | |
| michaelshimeles/nextjs-starter-kit | 3K | TypeScript | — | |
| apptension/saas-boilerplate | 2.8K | TypeScript | mit | |
| mailtrain-org/mailtrain | 5.7K | JavaScript | GPL-3.0 |