Overview of Backstage, an open source React and Node.js framework for building extensible internal developer portals with catalog, scaffolding templates, TechDocs, unified search, and plugin architecture
Backstage is an open-source framework for building Internal Developer Portals (IDPs). It stands out because of its open-source community, familiar technology stack, and a plugin-first architecture that makes it highly extensible and easy to customize.
Key technical choices:
Frontend: React
Backend: Node.js (Express-based server)
This combination means most JavaScript developers can extend and customize Backstage with minimal ramp-up.
Out of the box, Backstage includes several core capabilities that are essential for an IDP:
Software catalog (inventory of services, packages, APIs, applications)
Scaffolding templates for consistent project creation
Built-in documentation via TechDocs
Unified, extensible search across catalog and docs
Plugin-based architecture (modular features and integrations)
Below we examine each of these features in detail.Software catalogThe software catalog centralizes your organization’s software entities and metadata: owners, lifecycle (production/staging), type, and relationships. It enables navigation from a component to its documentation, owners, and dependent services.
Backstage can automatically parse entity metadata (YAML descriptors) and generate a relations graph that surfaces dependencies and service ownership. This improves incident response, impact analysis, and governance.Templating (Scaffolding)Backstage templates automate the repetitive steps of new-project onboarding: creating repositories, adding CI/CD, scaffolding code, applying linters and tests, provisioning infrastructure, and granting access. Templates enforce standards and reduce manual setup time.
You can author templates per language, framework, or deployment pattern (Node.js, Java, Python, React, microservices with API gateways, etc.). Developers simply complete a short form (name, owner, repo, target platform) to scaffold a project.
Example: a Python template wizard where the user selects the compute platform (EC2/ECS/EKS/Lambda), fills metadata, and clicks scaffold.
Under the hood, templates can:
Create a GitHub repository populated with an initial codebase that follows organizational best practices.
Add CI/CD configuration, linters, and developer tooling.
Optionally provision and deploy to infrastructure (for example, EC2).
Templates are flexible and can be customized for organization-specific frameworks like Next.js, Laravel, Django, or any internal stack.Documentation (TechDocs)Backstage surfaces documentation close to the code using the TechDocs plugin. The recommended pattern is to keep docs in the same repository (e.g., a docs/ folder or README.md). TechDocs uses MkDocs to convert Markdown into browsable HTML that Backstage renders inline.
TechDocs typically uses MkDocs (for example with the mkdocs-material theme). Projects must include standard MkDocs configuration (like mkdocs.yml) and Markdown files in the repo for Backstage to render the documentation.
Recommended examples to include in your repo:README example:
This service handles shopping cart operations.## Endpoints- `GET /cart/{id}` — Retrieve a cart- `POST /cart` — Create a cart
Small JavaScript example in the same repo:
function add(a, b) { return a + b;}console.log(add(2, 3)); // 5
SearchBackstage provides a unified, extensible search index that can include:
Catalog entities and metadata
TechDocs content (rendered Markdown)
External content via integrations (Confluence, Stack Overflow, vendor data sources)
This lets developers find services, docs, and knowledge from a single interface.
PluginsPlugins are Backstage’s primary extension mechanism. Core features (catalog, templates, TechDocs, search) are implemented as plugins, and all new integrations follow the same pattern. Plugins fetch data, transform it, and render UI components.
You can:
Install community and vendor plugins
Build custom plugins to integrate internal systems (monitoring, billing, ticketing)
Replace core functionality by swapping or extending the corresponding plugin
SummaryBackstage is an open-source framework for building internal developer portals (IDPs). It uses a familiar stack (React + Node.js), provides essential features out of the box (software catalog, templates, TechDocs, search), and uses a plugin-based architecture so you can extend or replace functionality consistently and modularly.