LaunchTool

The fastest way to launch SEO-friendly tool websites

Launch your next web tool in minutes, not months. LaunchTool is a production-ready Next.js template that combines powerful tools with content marketing to drive organic growth.

Demo · Documentation · Report Bug

✨ What is LaunchTool?

A Next.js template designed for indie makers who want to build tool-first content sites that rank on Google and attract users organically.

Perfect for:

✅ Free online tools (converters, compressors, calculators) ✅ Lead generation tools for agencies ✅ SEO experiments and niche sites ✅ Side projects that need fast validation

NOT designed for:

❌ Complex SaaS with user accounts ❌ Data-heavy applications requiring databases ❌ Enterprise software

💡 Need auth & payments? Check out the SaaS migration guide for integrating Clerk + Stripe when you're ready to monetize.

🎯 The "Tool + Content" Strategy

This template implements a proven growth framework used by successful tool websites:

1. 🔧 Tool provides immediate value
   ↓
2. 📝 Content ranks on Google
   ↓
3. 🌍 i18n multiplies traffic 2-5x
   ↓
4. 💰 Users convert naturally

Real-world examples using this strategy:

TinyPNG - Image compression tool → $500k/month
SmallPDF - PDF tools → Acquired for $200M
RemoveBG - Background removal → Multi-million dollar exit

🚀 Quick Start

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/zenvel/launchtool.git my-tool
cd my-tool

# Install dependencies
pnpm install

# Copy environment variables
cp .env.example .env.local

# Start development server
pnpm dev

Open http://localhost:3000 - your tool site is ready!

Deploy to Vercel (free)

vercel --prod

Your tool is live in 5 minutes. 🎉

📦 What's Included

Core Features

✅ Next.js 15 with App Router & Edge Runtime
✅ React 19 with Server Components
✅ TypeScript for type safety
✅ Tailwind CSS 4 with 56+ shadcn/ui components
✅ Dark/Light theme with next-themes

Content & SEO

✅ MDX blog system powered by Fumadocs
✅ i18n support (English + Chinese, easily extensible)
✅ SEO optimized (meta tags, sitemap, structured data)
✅ Blog templates (tutorials, comparisons, guides)
✅ Math equations (KaTeX) & code highlighting

Tool Features

✅ Client-side processing (privacy-first architecture)
✅ File upload & drag-drop
✅ Before/after comparison slider
✅ Progress tracking
✅ Download functionality

Developer Experience

✅ pnpm for fast package management
✅ ESLint & Prettier configured
✅ CLI scripts for productivity
✅ Hot reload in development
✅ One-click deploy configs

📚 Documentation

Getting Started Guide - Detailed customization walkthrough
Project Structure - Understanding the codebase
Customization Guide - Branding, colors, and content
Deployment Guide - Vercel, Cloudflare, and self-hosting
SEO Best Practices - Rank your tool on Google
i18n Setup - Adding new languages
Migration to SaaS - Adding auth & payments

🛠️ Built-in Examples

1. Image Compressor (included)

A fully functional image compression tool demonstrating:

Client-side file processing
Multiple format support (JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF)
Quality controls
Real-time preview
Batch processing

2. Coming Soon

We're adding more example tools:

Text converters (Markdown ↔ HTML)
Data formatters (JSON ↔ YAML)
Code beautifiers
File converters

🎨 Customization

1. Update site config

Edit config/site.config.ts:

export const siteConfig = {
  name: "YourTool",
  title: "YourTool - Do Something Amazing",
  description: "Your tool description",
  url: "https://yourdomain.com",
  // ... more settings
};

2. Customize branding

# Replace logo and favicon
cp your-logo.svg public/logo.svg
cp your-favicon.ico public/favicon.ico

# Update brand colors in tailwind.config.js
# Update OG images in public/og-image.png (1200x630px)

3. Create your first blog post

./scripts/new-post.sh "Your First Post Title" en

📖 For detailed customization, see TEMPLATE_GUIDE.md

🌍 Internationalization (i18n)

LaunchTool includes built-in support for multiple languages:

🇺🇸 English (default)
🇨🇳 Chinese (Simplified)

Adding a new language:

Add locale in config/site.config.ts
Create messages/{locale}.json
Create content/blog/{locale}/ directory

See i18n Guide for details.

📊 SEO Strategy

LaunchTool implements SEO best practices out of the box:

On-Page SEO

✅ Semantic HTML structure
✅ Optimized meta tags (title, description, OG, Twitter)
✅ Structured data (JSON-LD)
✅ Auto-generated sitemap
✅ Robots.txt configured

Content SEO

✅ Blog system for long-tail keywords
✅ Internal linking structure
✅ Fast page loads (Edge Runtime)
✅ Mobile-responsive design

Advanced SEO

✅ i18n for multiple markets
✅ Auto-generated Table of Contents
✅ Breadcrumb navigation
✅ Canonical URLs

📖 Deep dive: SEO Guide

🚢 Deployment

Vercel (Recommended)

vercel --prod

Cloudflare Pages

npm run build
npx wrangler pages publish out

Self-Hosting

npm run build
npm run start

📖 Full deployment guide: docs/deployment.md

🗺️ Roadmap

Core template with tool + content system
i18n support (EN + ZH)
SEO optimization
Blog system with MDX
More tool examples (text, data, code tools)
Video tutorial series
Community showcase
Optional SaaS modules (@launchtool/auth, @launchtool/payments)
CLI tool for scaffolding (npx create-launchtool-app)

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please read our Contributing Guide first.

Fork the repository
Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
Open a Pull Request

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

TL;DR: Build whatever you want, no attribution required. ✨

🙏 Credits

Built with Next.js by Vercel
UI components from shadcn/ui
Documentation powered by Fumadocs
Icons from Lucide

💬 Support

🌟 Showcase

Built something awesome with LaunchTool? Add it to our showcase!

⭐ Star this repo if it helped you launch faster!

Made with ❤️ by the LaunchTool community

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 2 Commits
.playwright-mcp		.playwright-mcp
.source		.source
app		app
components		components
config		config
content/blog		content/blog
data/comparison		data/comparison
hooks		hooks
i18n		i18n
lib		lib
messages		messages
public		public
scripts		scripts
styles		styles
.eslintrc.json		.eslintrc.json
.gitignore		.gitignore
CONTRIBUTING.md		CONTRIBUTING.md
LICENSE		LICENSE
QUICKSTART.md		QUICKSTART.md
README.md		README.md
TEMPLATE_GUIDE.md		TEMPLATE_GUIDE.md
components.json		components.json
middleware.ts		middleware.ts
next.config.mjs		next.config.mjs
package.json		package.json
pnpm-lock.yaml		pnpm-lock.yaml
postcss.config.mjs		postcss.config.mjs
routing.ts		routing.ts
source.config.ts		source.config.ts
tsconfig.json		tsconfig.json

License

zenvel/launchtool

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