Templates Overview
Templates are pre-configured multi-service stacks that you can deploy on Stackpad with a single click. Instead of manually creating services and configuring connections, a template sets up everything at once.
How templates work
A template is defined by a stackpad.json file that describes:
- Which services to create (web apps, databases, caches, etc.)
- How services connect to each other
- Which environment variables to set
- What health checks to run
When you deploy a template, Stackpad:
- Creates all services defined in the template
- Generates secure credentials for databases and caches
- Injects connection strings into dependent services
- Starts all containers in the correct order
- Runs health checks to verify everything is working
Available templates
Stackpad ships with a growing library of one-click templates. Below is the current list, grouped by category.
Full-stack starters
| Template | Description | Services |
|---|---|---|
| Next.js + PostgreSQL | Full-stack web app with a managed database | Next.js, PostgreSQL |
| Supabase | Open-source Firebase alternative with auth, REST API, realtime, and dashboard | PostgreSQL, GoTrue, PostgREST, Realtime, Kong, Studio |
| Payload CMS | Next.js-native headless CMS | Payload, PostgreSQL |
Workflow & automation
| Template | Description | Services |
|---|---|---|
| n8n | Workflow automation with queue-based worker scaling | n8n, n8n-worker, PostgreSQL, Redis |
| Temporal | Durable workflow execution engine with web UI | Temporal, Temporal UI, PostgreSQL |
Content management
| Template | Description | Services |
|---|---|---|
| Ghost | Professional publishing for blogs, newsletters, and paid memberships | Ghost |
| Directus | Flexible headless CMS with visual data studio, REST and GraphQL APIs | Directus, PostgreSQL, Redis |
Analytics & monitoring
| Template | Description | Services |
|---|---|---|
| Plausible Analytics | Privacy-friendly web analytics — no cookies, GDPR compliant | Plausible, PostgreSQL, ClickHouse |
| Umami | Lightweight, privacy-focused alternative to Google Analytics | Umami, PostgreSQL |
| Metabase | Business intelligence dashboards — connect your data, ask questions, share insights | Metabase, PostgreSQL |
| Uptime Kuma | Self-hosted monitoring with beautiful status pages | Uptime Kuma |
Developer tools
| Template | Description | Services |
|---|---|---|
| Gitea | Lightweight self-hosted Git service with issue tracking and CI/CD | Gitea, PostgreSQL |
| Paperless-ngx | Document management with OCR, full-text search, and automatic tagging | Paperless-ngx, PostgreSQL, Redis |
| MinIO | S3-compatible object storage for files, backups, and media | MinIO |
Databases & caches
These templates deploy a single data service, useful as a standalone managed instance or as a starting point for a larger stack.
| Template | Description | Port |
|---|---|---|
| PostgreSQL | Reliable open-source relational database | 5432 |
| MariaDB | MySQL-compatible relational database | 3306 |
| MySQL | Popular open-source relational database | 3306 |
| MongoDB | Document-oriented NoSQL database | 27017 |
| ClickHouse | Column-oriented database for real-time analytics | 8123 |
| Redis | In-memory data store for caching, sessions, and queues | 6379 |
| Valkey | Open-source Redis alternative (fully compatible) | 6379 |
Deploying a template
- Go to the Templates section in the dashboard (or the templates page on stackpad.eu)
- Click on a template to view its details
- Click Deploy
- Fill in any required inputs (like a Git repository URL)
- Stackpad creates the project with all services configured
Creating custom templates
You can create your own templates using the stackpad.json format. See the stackpad.json reference for the full specification.
What’s next?
- Next.js + PostgreSQL — deploy a full-stack web app
- Supabase — deploy your own Supabase instance
- stackpad.json reference — create custom templates