Why DevPortal?

What is a Backstage distro?

A Backstage distribution (distro) is a packaged, opinionated build of Backstage that comes with curated plugins, sensible defaults, integrations, and an upgrade path. Instead of stitching together the open-source core, dozens of plugins, auth, RBAC, catalog processors, search backends, and CI/CD yourself, a distro gives you a tested runtime you can deploy and operate reliably.

For 3.x, the plugin catalog index enables the default plugins; the image carries only their names. Use chart values to add or override plugins. See What ships by default and how to disable a default plugin.

Why run a ready-to-use Backstage runtime?

• Faster time-to-value: start with a working portal on day one. The catalog, the API catalog, TechDocs, notifications, Tech Radar, the plugin Marketplace, and the self-service area for your own templates are already wired in the image.

• Hardened, supported baseline: vetted plugins, sensible configuration, and guidance for scale and multi-tenant realities. Permission checks are off by default in 3.x; see the RBAC note.

• Upgrades made safe: regular, non-breaking releases, security patches, and migration notes, without you chasing every upstream change.

• Lower total cost of ownership: reduce engineering hours spent on build, test, release, and incident response for the portal itself.

The toil of running DIY Backstage

• Dependency and plugin churn: frequent breaking changes across core, plugins, and SDKs; pinning, patching, and debugging eat cycles.

• Integration glue and drift: auth providers, RBAC, catalog processors, search backends, and CI integrations require ongoing glue code that diverges from upstream.

• Upgrade risk and fork maintenance: customizations often create a local fork; over time, merging upstream becomes risky and slow. It takes time and effort to keep up with upstream changes while still delivering a reliable and secure portal with added features.

• Lack of product thinking: engineers will focus on the portal code instead of portal artifacts and experience, failing to deliver value to users.

Focus on platform outcomes, not portal plumbing

Every hour spent keeping the portal alive is an hour not spent on golden paths, scorecards, paved-road templates, and developer experience. A supported distro lets your platform team focus on business-impact features instead of undifferentiated maintenance.

Building your platform is hard by itself, let's not make it harder by adding the complexity of maintaining a portal when value to be delivered lies somewhere else.

We’ve got your back (support included)

• Expert support and SLAs for incidents and upgrades
• Guidance on information architecture, RBAC, and catalog modeling
• Compatibility testing for popular plugins and integrations
• Upgrade playbooks and migration assistance
• We can even develop plugins for you!

For the 3.x support lifecycle and release policy, see Support.

Outcome: a reliable, secure developer portal that evolves with your platform, without the maintenance burden.