Kickstart Your Full-Stack App in Seconds with create-sb-react-express

Building a modern full-stack app shouldn’t feel like assembling IKEA furniture blindfolded. That’s why I created create-sb-react-express — a powerful CLI that scaffolds a modern full-stack monorepo using React + Tailwind (Vite) on the frontend and Express + PostgreSQL on the backend… in seconds.

What Is It?

create-sb-react-express is a zero-setup tool for developers who want to build fast, scalable full-stack apps with:

• 🧩 Monorepo architecture using npm workspaces
• ⚛️ React + Vite + Tailwind CSS frontend
• 🚀 Express + PostgreSQL backend
• 🐳 Docker-ready Postgres environment
• ⚡ Unified dev server using concurrently
• 🧪 Test-ready structure on both ends
• 📦 CLI scaffolding via npx

Why Use It?

Whether you’re building a portfolio project, MVP, or internal tool, this tool saves hours of boilerplate setup. Instead of setting up routing, database pools, Tailwind configs, or Docker scripts manually, just run:

npx create-sb-react-express my-app
cd my-app
npm install
npm run dev

You now have a fully-functional dev environment with hot-reloading frontend and backend servers.

🏗️ Folder Structure

my-app/
├── client/               # React + Tailwind (Vite)
│   ├── components/       # Shared UI components
│   ├── context/          # Context + test structure
│   ├── pages/            # Page components
│   ├── api/              # Client-side API fetchers
│   └── main.jsx
│
├── server/               # Express + PostgreSQL
│   ├── controllers/      # Route handlers
│   ├── db/               # Pool config, queries, seed
│   ├── routes/           # API endpoints
│   ├── expressInit.js    # Express setup
│   └── docker-compose.yml
│
├── package.json          # npm workspaces + scripts

📜 Scripts Overview

Inside package.json:

{
  "scripts": {
    "client": "npm run dev --prefix client",
    "server": "npm run dev --prefix server",
    "start": "concurrently \"npm run client\" \"npm run server\"",
    "dev": "concurrently \"npm run client\" \"npm run server\""
  }
}

Run both frontend and backend with one command:

npm run dev

First-Time Setup

To get everything running:

1. Start PostgreSQL using Docker cd server docker-compose up -d
2. Seed the database node db/populatedb.js
3. Rename environment files mv client/.env.example client/.env mv server/.env.example server/.env
4. Start development servers npm run dev

Vite runs on localhost:5173, Express on localhost:3000.

Installation

npm i -g create-sb-react-express

Please leave this field empty

Oh hi there 👋
It’s nice to meet you.

Sign up to receive awesome content in your inbox, every month.

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

Mohammad Dahamshi

I’m a software engineer with roots in embedded systems and a growing focus on DevOps and self-hosted infrastructure. CKA certified, CCNA background, and a homelab that never sleeps — running Proxmox, Kubernetes, Docker, Coolify, and more. On techlino.net I share practical guides on Linux, virtualization, and infrastructure built from real experience.