Rich software payloads from complex forms
Server-side normalization of stringified JSON arrays and booleans before validation on create and update.
Case study
SaaS Advisory Hub
B2B SaaS Discovery Marketplace
saasadvisoryhub.com
Product preview
Screenshots
Overview
Architected SaaS Advisory Hub — a B2B marketplace with NestJS and Prisma on PostgreSQL, Meilisearch discovery, dual Next.js apps, a vendor moderation pipeline, rich software and service catalogs, G2-style reviews, compare UX, cloud media uploads, Google OAuth, and Docker deployment on a shared platform edge at saasadvisoryhub.com.
Problem & goal
The Challenge
Buyers struggle to evaluate SaaS tools and service agencies from scattered vendor sites. Vendors need a structured marketplace to publish rich listings, collect reviews, and drive affiliate traffic — with editorial control so low-quality or unverified content does not pollute discovery.
SaaS Advisory Hub operates a three-sided content marketplace: buyers discover and compare software and services, vendors manage businesses and listings through a dedicated portal, and platform admins approve listings, reviews, vendors, and editorial blog content.
Target users
Who It's For
Buyers — browse categories, search, compare software and services, and submit structured reviews
Vendors — register, get approved, and manage business profiles plus software and service listings
Platform admins — moderation queue, category management, blog CMS, and user and vendor administration
Core capabilities
Platform Modules
Auth
Email and password login, Google OAuth with account-type routing, email verification, and secure session management.
Software catalog
Rich product pages with pricing plans, mobile apps, FAQs, competitors, integrations, and affiliate links.
Service marketplace
Agency profiles with industry focus, hourly rates, certifications, and capability matrices.
Discovery & search
Meilisearch-powered global search combined with PostgreSQL filters for category and facet browsing.
Compare
Side-by-side software and service comparison with shareable links for buyer research.
Reviews
G2-style structured reviews with multi-dimensional ratings, pros and cons, and admin approval.
Vendor portal
Dashboard, business CRUD, and multi-section listing wizards for software and services.
Admin console
Dashboard KPIs, moderation workflows, blog management, and user and vendor administration.
Blog
Sectioned posts with tags, SEO metadata, analytics, and search index sync on publish.
Media uploads
Authenticated cloud storage uploads with ownership validation before listing creation.
High-level design
System Architecture
The platform ships as three deployable applications: a Next.js public app for discovery, compare, blog, and vendor portal routes; a Next.js admin console on a separate subdomain; and a NestJS API handling versioned REST endpoints. PostgreSQL is the authoritative data store with Prisma. Meilisearch indexes denormalized documents for software, services, categories, and blogs synced on create, update, and publish. Customer and admin frontends proxy API requests same-origin in production.
External integrations include DigitalOcean Spaces for media, Resend for transactional email, and Google OAuth. Listings, reviews, and vendors default to a pending state until admin approval — public queries filter approved and active content only. Secure authentication with role-based access, authenticated media uploads with ownership validation, and throttled auth endpoints protect platform integrity.
Production stack
Technology Stack
Frontend
- Next.js
- React.js
- TypeScript
- Tailwind CSS
- Framer Motion
Backend
- NestJS
- Express
- Prisma
- Swagger
Data & search
- PostgreSQL
- Meilisearch
- Resend
Infrastructure
- Docker
- Shared platform edge TLS
- DigitalOcean Spaces
Dual-store pattern
Search & Discovery
Meilisearch indexes
Dedicated indexes for software, services, categories, blogs, users, and roles with filterable attributes configured at bootstrap.
Sync on write
Create and update operations flatten relational data into denormalized search documents with error logging on sync failure.
Global search
Parallel Meilisearch queries merge software, category, and service hits with PostgreSQL counts for unified results.
Virtual categories
Service industry types surface as virtual category entries when not yet mapped to the software taxonomy.
Editorial control
Catalog & Moderation
Software listings
Rich payloads covering deployment type, feature flags, pricing plans, competitors, webinars, resources, and affiliate links.
Service listings
Agency metadata with company type, industry, locations, project sizing, and nested capability focus matrices.
Moderation workflow
Vendor submissions enter pending state; admin approve or reject with reason before public catalog visibility.
Re-moderation
Non-rejected vendor edits reset listings to pending for admin review before changes go live.
Buyer research
Reviews & Compare
Structured reviews
Organization, job title, usage duration, multi-dimensional ratings, pros and cons, and likelihood to recommend.
Approval pipeline
Reviews default to pending; approved reviews recompute average rating and total count on parent listings.
Side-by-side compare
Compare context syncs with URL parameters for software and service entities with shareable compare links.
Detail enrichment
Compare views fetch listing detail and approved reviews per item through shared listing components.
Listing management
Vendor Portal & Content
Vendor dashboard
Stats on listings by status, ratings, and activity trends with role-gated portal access after admin approval.
Business profiles
Business CRUD with proof upload; services require an approved parent business before creation.
Listing wizards
Multi-section create and edit forms for software and service listings with URL-based media references.
Blog CMS
Admin sectioned posts with tags, SEO meta, featured images, and Meilisearch sync when published.
Marketplace economics
Monetization & Editorial
Affiliate links
Vendors configure outbound affiliate URLs and commission on software listings with disclosure on the frontend.
Editorial badges
Featured and verified flags on catalog entities for editorial promotion of quality listings.
Paid vendor flag
Schema support for paid vendor tiers tracked in admin KPIs — in-app subscription checkout planned for a future phase.
Challenges solved
Engineering Highlights
Service verticals vs software categories
Virtual categories in global search merge service industry types with the software taxonomy.
Untrusted vendor media
Authenticated upload with user-scoped storage keys and ownership validation on listing create.
Review spam and low quality
Admin approval pipeline with aggregate ratings computed only from approved reviews.
Re-moderation on vendor edits
Non-rejected listing edits automatically return to pending for admin review.
OAuth signup vs login confusion
Google OAuth with signed state carrying intent and account type for customer vs vendor flows.
Search index drift from database
Dual-store pattern with Meilisearch sync on every write and filter configuration on service bootstrap.
Built for production load
Performance & Scale
Meilisearch full-text search avoids heavy PostgreSQL pattern matching on discovery queries
Parallel search queries in global search endpoint for sub-second unified results
Denormalized index documents avoid joins at search time
Stateless API scales horizontally behind shared platform edge nginx
Cloud object storage offloads binary media traffic from API containers
Same-origin API proxy in frontends eliminates CORS preflight on read requests
Pagination utilities on list endpoints for admin and catalog browsing
Operations
Deployment
The production stack runs in Docker containers — database, Meilisearch, API, public app, and admin console — on a shared platform edge network with automated TLS at saasadvisoryhub.com. Prisma migrations run on backend startup. Health checks on core services ensure reliable uptime for the discovery marketplace.
Roadmap
What's Next
Lead capture API wired to software detail CTAs and vendor inbox
Affiliate click tracking on outbound link redirects
Paid vendor tier billing integration
Meilisearch replicas for high-availability search at scale
Review verification workflow with proof URL review queue
Buyer accounts with saved comparisons and listing follow alerts
AI-generated blog summaries for SEO at scale
Async search index queue decoupled from write path