5 React Admin Dashboard Templates for SaaS Apps: Free and Paid

Choosing a React admin dashboard template gets tiring pretty quickly. You open a few demos, see a sidebar, some charts and a users table, and they all start to blur together.

Then you find one you like. Except the page you need is in the paid version. Or it uses a different UI library from the rest of your app. Or the billing screen looks finished, but none of the buttons do anything yet.

This list covers five options for SaaS dashboards, client portals and internal tools. There are free starting points and paid kits, using Tailwind CSS, shadcn/ui, Bootstrap and Material UI. The aim is to help you pick something you can actually build on.

We make Forma, one of the options below. The other entries are based on their official product pages and repositories, linked in each section. These are our picks for different needs, not a performance ranking or a claim that we’ve shipped an app with each one.

React admin dashboard templates at a glance

Template	UI stack	Starting cost	We’d shortlist it for
Shadcn Admin	shadcn/ui, Tailwind, Vite	Free	Developers who want dashboard UI to adapt themselves
TailAdmin React	Tailwind, TypeScript, Vite	Free; Pro available	Tailwind projects that need a choice of dashboard layouts
CoreUI React	CoreUI, Bootstrap	Free; Pro available	Teams already comfortable with Bootstrap
Berry	Material UI	Free; paid edition available	Apps that already use MUI
Forma	React, TypeScript, Tailwind, Vite	$69 one-time	SaaS and client apps needing several connected workflows

Free and paid editions don’t always include the same pages. Open the download comparison before you make your choice.

1. Shadcn Admin: a free starting point for shadcn/ui projects

If you already like working with shadcn/ui, start here. Sat Naing’s Shadcn Admin includes light and dark appearance, a sidebar, global search and more than ten pages. It uses Vite, TypeScript and TanStack Router, and the repository is MIT licensed. See the project and feature list.

There is one detail worth catching: the author describes it as dashboard UI rather than a starter project. We’d treat it as a collection to build from, with your own application decisions still to make.

That suits a developer who wants control over the app structure and doesn’t need a large set of business modules on day one. It also means you should check the routing before dropping it into an existing project.

Some components have been changed for RTL support and other improvements. The README explains which ones need care when updating through the shadcn CLI.

Our take: shortlist it when you want a free shadcn admin UI and are happy doing the assembly yourself.

2. TailAdmin React: worth a look for a Tailwind dashboard

TailAdmin’s React edition uses Tailwind CSS, TypeScript and Vite. Its wider catalogue covers layouts for areas such as analytics, ecommerce and CRM, along with charts, tables and application pages.

For a team that wants to stay in Tailwind, that gives you several directions to explore without switching UI libraries.

The thing to check is the edition. TailAdmin offers a free React download and a separate Pro version with a larger set of components. The download page compares them. Don’t assume the full showcase is what you’ll get in the free ZIP.

Our take: try the free download if you mainly need the dashboard basics. Look at Pro when you can name the extra pages you’ll use. A long component list only helps if it includes the things your app is missing.

3. CoreUI React: a sensible place to start if you use Bootstrap

Not every React project needs Tailwind. If your team already works with Bootstrap, changing the styling system just to use a template may create more work than it saves.

CoreUI’s free React admin template is built around React and Bootstrap. The free edition includes its default admin theme with light and dark modes, while Pro offers more themes.

We’d put it on the shortlist for an internal admin panel where fitting the existing codebase matters more than finding a new visual style.

The trade-off goes both ways. If your app already uses Tailwind or MUI throughout, check how CoreUI would fit before adding another component system. Start with a real form and table from your project, rather than judging it by the dashboard alone.

Our take: a practical option for a Bootstrap team. Less of an obvious choice if you’d need to change the rest of your app to match it.

4. Berry: a React dashboard template for Material UI apps

Berry is built with Material UI. If MUI is already your team’s default, it’s an option to look at before trying to recreate that setup inside a Tailwind template.

The free edition is a small starting point. Berry’s own comparison lists seven demo pages there, with TypeScript, dark mode and additional application features listed under the paid edition.

That distinction matters. If TypeScript and dark mode are requirements, compare the paid package from the start. The free download can still help you decide whether you like the structure and design.

Our take: shortlist Berry for an MUI project. Check the free-versus-paid table carefully, especially if you’re choosing a template from screenshots of the full version.

5. Forma: for SaaS and client work that spans several screens

Forma is our React admin template. It costs $69 once and includes 41 screens and state examples, built with TypeScript, Vite and Tailwind CSS.

Its focus is the work around the main dashboard: client projects, a sales pipeline, invoices, pricing and billing, analytics and support. Light and dark appearance are included.

For example, you can edit an invoice and see the related business totals change, or open a client record and follow its linked projects. These are working local demo flows, with changes saved in the browser. You can try them in the demo.

We’d suggest Forma if you’re building a client portal or SaaS app that needs several of those areas together. If you only need a sidebar and one table, a smaller free option may be enough.

Forma is frontend source. You connect your own authentication, database, payments and other services. The documentation covers where that work starts. It isn’t a Next.js starter or an MUI kit, so choose it with that stack in mind.

Free vs paid React admin templates: which makes more sense?

Write down the screens you need for your first release. Be specific. “Customers” might mean a table, search, a detail page, an edit form and a way to archive a record.

Then compare that list against each download.

A free template can be plenty if it handles the layout and you’re comfortable building the rest. Paying makes more sense when the package already includes work you were about to do: useful forms, billing screens, table interactions, or a consistent mobile layout across several modules.

Page count on its own isn’t a great measure. Five variations of a sign-in page won’t help much if the screen you need is an invoice editor.

The same goes for free downloads attached to paid products. They’re useful, but compare the free contents with your list, not the most impressive page in the Pro demo.

What to check in a SaaS admin dashboard template

Spend a few minutes on the awkward parts of the demo. They’re often more revealing than the overview page.

• Search for something that isn’t there. Is the empty result clear? Can you reset the filters?
• Submit an incomplete form. Check the errors and whether your other entries stay put.
• Open a detail page on your phone. Try the navigation, table controls and any dialogs.
• Follow one job through several screens. Create a record, edit it, then find it again. See how much of that flow already exists.
• Read the setup instructions. Check the router, styling system and source files against your current app.
• Check the service connections. A login form doesn’t tell you whether authentication is wired up. Look for the actual integration instructions.

If you’re building reporting tools, test chart filters and the underlying data view too. A chart that looks good with twelve sample points may need extra work for the data you plan to show.

Using Astro for your website and React for the admin dashboard

Say you’re building a booking SaaS. The public site explains the product, shows pricing and publishes guides that people can find through search. After signing in, a customer manages bookings, checks revenue and changes team settings.

Those are different jobs. One setup we’d consider is Astro for the public website and a React admin dashboard for the application.

Astro renders components to HTML by default and lets you add interactive React components where you need them. Its islands architecture guide explains that approach. For the separate-app setup, your public pages can stay focused on content while the dashboard handles the forms, filters and changing data.

Here’s a simple way to split it:

Part	Example address	What it does
Astro website	example.com	Homepage, features, pricing, blog and public docs
React dashboard	app.example.com	Bookings, customers, reports, billing and account settings
Backend API	api.example.com	Checks access, reads and saves records, talks to other services

Both Astro and the dashboard provide interfaces that people see. The dashboard isn’t the backend just because it’s called an admin panel. Your backend is what stores the bookings and decides who can read or change them.

How the two parts connect

The public site’s Sign in button opens the app’s login page. After authentication, the React dashboard asks your API for that customer’s bookings and displays them in a table.

When the customer changes a booking, the app sends the change to the API. The server checks their access, saves it and returns the updated record. The dashboard then updates the table. The Astro marketing site doesn’t need rebuilding every time someone makes a booking.

You can keep the two frontends in separate projects and deploy them separately. Use the same logo, colours and type to make the move between them feel familiar. Set up your authentication provider and API access for the domains you choose; a shared brand doesn’t automatically mean a shared login session.

For example, an Astro SaaS website theme can cover the public pages, while a React admin template covers the app. You still connect the services behind it.

Where live charts and analytics data come from

A React chart needs a source of data. For the booking app, your API might return this month’s revenue and booking counts. The dashboard turns that response into a chart.

You don’t always need a constant live connection. Refreshing when someone opens a report, changes its date range or saves a record may be enough. For things like incoming support messages, your backend can push updates through a subscription or streaming connection.

The choice depends on how fresh the screen needs to be. Daily revenue and a live support inbox probably don’t need the same approach.

In Forma, you’d replace the sample data and local actions with those API connections. Its charts and forms provide the interface; your services provide the real records.

Do Astro and React have to be separate projects?

No. Astro supports React islands, so an interactive section can live inside an Astro page. If you only need a small account area, that may suit you.

For an admin app with lots of connected screens and shared state, we’d consider keeping the React app separate. It gives the dashboard its own routing and release cycle. That’s an architecture choice, not a requirement, and it doesn’t mean Astro can’t handle interactive features.

Pick the one that leaves you with less work

Start with your existing stack. That narrows the list faster than browsing another twenty demos.

For this shortlist, we’d look at Shadcn Admin for a free shadcn/ui foundation, TailAdmin for Tailwind layout choices, CoreUI for Bootstrap, and Berry for MUI. Forma is worth a look when you want the client and SaaS workflows together in one kit.

Then take one ordinary task from your app and see how each candidate handles it. Add a customer. Change an invoice. Filter a report. The template that gets closest to your version of that task is probably the one worth spending more time with.