HTMX + Go

A hosted identity platform that handles social logins, MFA, and password resets. A Go server signs users in through the standard OIDC redirect flow with go-oidc and x/oauth2, then keeps the result in a session cookie, so HTMX requests stay authenticated without any token handling in the browser. The easiest managed route, with a free tier for early projects.

A self-hosted, open-source identity server with single sign-on, roles, and LDAP or Active Directory federation. A Go app signs users in through the same OIDC flow with go-oidc and x/oauth2 and holds the login in a session cookie. There is no per-user pricing, but it is one more service to run, back up, and upgrade, so it earns its place when SSO or your own user directory matters.

Hosted sign-in and account pages, with Clerk's Go SDK verifying sessions on the server. The SDK is an API client, so the login screens come from Clerk's hosted pages or its JavaScript components rather than from your Go templates. A fit when you want polished screens without building them, and less so if the app has to stay free of third-party JavaScript.

A transactional email API for account verification, password resets, and notification emails, sent via Resend's official Go SDK from a route handler, with a free tier for getting started.

The established high-volume choice, with dedicated IP addresses and deliverability tooling for apps sending at serious scale. No permanent free plan (a 60-day trial, then paid tiers), so it earns its slot when volume and deliverability matter more than upfront cost.

An all-in-one platform combining the transactional email API with marketing campaigns, a built-in CRM, and SMS from the same dashboard. A permanent free tier of 300 emails a day with no card required makes it an easy starting pick for an early-stage app.

Adds subscription billing, one-time checkout, and invoicing via Stripe's hosted Checkout or embedded Elements, with the Go server handling webhook verification and API calls server-side. The stack works fully without it; add this once the product is ready to charge for something.

A utility-class CSS framework: styles are composed directly in markup via class names instead of writing separate stylesheet files. The default styling choice bundled by most modern framework CLIs (create-next-app, create-vue, the SvelteKit and Astro starters all offer it), and the base layer shadcn/ui components are built on when that's loaded into the catalog in the future.

Ready-made components and a grid for Go's html/template pages, added with a CDN link or files served from the static directory, with no build step. Bootstrap's data-attribute components such as modals and dropdowns keep working on content swapped in by HTMX, while tooltips and popovers need initialising after a swap. Pick it or Tailwind, not both.

Alpine.js adds lightweight, declarative client-side interactivity on top of this stack's HTMX-driven Go templates: toggling a mobile menu, showing a modal, or switching an active tab, all without triggering a server round trip HTMX would otherwise need. It is included via a script tag, with behavior written as HTML attributes (x-data, x-show, x-on) rather than a build step, keeping the stack's zero-bundler approach intact.

S3-compatible object storage with no egress fees, so serving uploads, images, and exports costs only for storage and operations. A Go handler uses aws-sdk-go-v2's S3 client and presign client with a custom base endpoint, so the browser can upload directly and the keys stay in the server environment. The 10 GB free tier covers an early product.

The reference object store and the API the others copy, with the most storage classes, regional controls, and lifecycle rules. A Go handler uses aws-sdk-go-v2's S3 client and presign client with a custom base endpoint, so the browser can upload directly and the keys stay in the server environment. It fits best when the rest of the app already runs on AWS, though data transfer out is billed.

An S3-compatible store at roughly a third of S3 Standard's storage price, a fit for backups and large media libraries. A Go handler uses aws-sdk-go-v2's S3 client and presign client with a custom base endpoint, so the browser can upload directly and the keys stay in the server environment. Egress is free up to three times the stored data, and a CDN in front of a public bucket covers heavier delivery.

go-redis is the standard Redis client for Go, and in Gin, Echo, or Fiber it backs response caching middleware, per-client rate limiting, and shared values such as session data that must survive across several instances of the binary. A Go server is fast enough that the database is usually the bottleneck first. PostgreSQL already keeps frequently read rows in memory, so Redis is for when the same expensive queries repeat under real traffic.

Runs the test suite and triggers deployments on every push, directly from the same GitHub repo the code already lives in, with no separate CI service to configure.

GitLab's built-in CI/CD system, configured via .gitlab-ci.yml in the repository, the natural pick if the project's code lives on GitLab (self-hosted or gitlab.com) rather than GitHub, with the same YAML-pipeline model as GitHub Actions.

Packages the whole Go + HTMX app into a container image for consistent local development and deployment, independent of the hosting platform chosen above.

Error tracking and performance monitoring with Sentry's Go SDK, wired into the framework's middleware chain, with ready-made integrations for Gin, Echo, and Fiber. Open-source with a self-hosted path, alongside its own managed cloud.

A broader observability platform covering APM, infrastructure metrics, and log management in one dashboard, useful once a team is already running other services worth monitoring alongside this app. Managed-only, with pricing that scales by host and usage rather than Sentry's per-error volume.

An all-in-one product analytics platform: event tracking, session replay, feature flags, and A/B testing in one SDK. The richest feature set if you want more than pageviews.

The industry-standard, free analytics platform, with native Google Ads and Search Console integration. Requires a cookie consent banner in most jurisdictions (GDPR/CCPA), and all data lives on Google's infrastructure, the tradeoff the other three picks were built to avoid.

A lightweight, privacy-first analytics tool with no cookie banner required. A good fit for simple traffic metrics without PostHog's broader feature surface.

Open-source and self-hostable, keeping analytics data on infrastructure you control. Pairs naturally with the self-hosted Hetzner hosting option above if you want to avoid a third-party analytics vendor entirely.