Platform engineering is at the heart of modern software delivery. It is squarely in the spotlight. But take a step back — and you’ll find a situation that reminds me of the old chicken-and-egg question: Which came first, the Internal Developer Platform (IDP) or the platform that enables it? Specifically, is it the emergence of IDPs that led organizations to tools like Backstage, or did Backstage’s rise in developer portal popularity drive the IDP trend?
Either way, Backstage has made the top 30 list of the Linux Foundations fastest growing projects. That is no mean feat when you consider it is among the likes of Linux itself, Kubernetes, Open Telemetry, Argo, etc. So while the usual complaints about pure open source being clunky, hard to use, scalability, etc., people and organizations are using it like mad. Not saying it doesn’t have its warts, but we will look at that later.
Let’s explore how Backstage — Spotify’s open-source portal framework — has risen to prominence, how it’s become a bedrock of platform engineering, and how it’s fueling the IDP movement itself.
🐣 Backstage: A Linux Foundation Rocket Ship
Backstage began in 2020 as Spotify’s internal developer portal to bring order to microservices chaos. By early 2020, it powered over 2,000 microservices, 300+ websites, and 4,000 data pipelines at Spotify; rolling out the open-source version on March 16 marked a pivotal moment. They turned the open source project over to the CNCF
Today it’s among the 30 fastest-growing projects in the Linux Foundation’s entire roster. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) accepted Backstage into incubation in 2022, and it was a top‑five project in terms of activity and velocity in 2024.
Astonishing stats speak for themselves: 2 million developers across 3,400+ organizations now use Backstage, including the likes of Airbnb, LinkedIn, Twilio and American Airlines.
🍳 The IDP That Built Backstage—or Did Backstage Build the IDP?
IDPs — those all-in-one internal platforms designed to streamline developer experience — are essential to modern DevOps. Engineers once celebrated mastering Kubernetes clusters as the endpoint of platform engineering. These days, mastering an IDP like Backstage is the modern bar.
But which pushed the other forward? Did companies first realize they needed an IDP so they turned to Backstage? Or did Backstage’s elegance and plugin-driven model cause organizations to adopt the IDP concept?
I lean into both: This is symbiosis, not a sequence. Backstage’s success is rooted in its ability to let platform teams pick modules — catalogs, scaffolding, tech docs, CI/CD integrations — from a rich “shop” in its plugin directory. That selection flexibility is the magnet driving adoption.
🧩 Plugin Galore: Driving the Chicken – Egg Loop
Spotify opened dozens of plugins from day one — TechDocs, Kubernetes, scaffolder, CI/CD tools, monitoring, security, metadata, search, vault integration, audit tooling and more . Internally, Spotify counts over 120 plugins, and even in the open-source catalog, there are hundreds more.
Compare that to Jenkins’ ecosystem (~1,200 plugins) and you begin to appreciate the scale. That extensibility makes Backstage the go-to IDP framework. Platform engineers aren’t starting from scratch — they grab building blocks and rapidly build tailored developer portals.
Which comes first: The platform or the tool? The answer, increasingly, is both at once.
🍫 Peanut Butter & Chocolate: Platform Engineering & Backstage
Platform engineering and Backstage have become a match made in heaven — like peanut butter and chocolate.
Platform engineering began with managing Kubernetes and infrastructure consistency. But today, the conversation is less about clusters and more about developer velocity, security and standardization — all of which are the promise of a robust IDP. And Backstage is the toolbox these teams pick first.
Its velocity, community, governance and plugin ecosystem make it far more than just another portal. Being part of the Linux Foundation and CNCF gives assurance that Backstage isn’t tethered to any vendor — it’s community-governed.
Spotify continues to drive core innovation, but features now emerge from community contributors, enterprise adopters and third-party developers. It’s a living ecosystem.
🧠 What About the Competitors?
Other players are entering the IDP arena. OpsLevel, for example, positions itself as a Backstage challenger, even brandishing AI features to “upstage” the incumbent. But the momentum — as measured in velocity, community size and sheer plugin volume — is firmly behind Backstage.
Perhaps its biggest competitor though is Backstage itself. Spotify recently started offering a SaaS based hosted version that is more user friendly and has Spotify’s experience and team behind it in a commercial offering. Will that become the dominant form factor remains to be seen. But it certainly quiets down some of the people not happy with the raw edges of pure open source code.
What OpsLevel and others bring to the table is valid: Too much flexibility can overwhelm, plugin quality varies and IDPs can degrade without governance. These are precisely the areas where vendors can add value — polished out-of-the-box experiences, domain-specific intelligence and enterprise-grade guardrails.
Yet for now, Backstage’s blend of community momentum and flexibility is hard to beat. It’s not going anywhere, quickly.
⏳ How Much Longer Will This Symbiosis Last?
IDP demand is surging globally. Organizations that didn’t even know what a portal was just two years ago are now scrambling to build platforms that give devs autonomy, consistency and velocity — all while locking in security and compliance.
Backstage is feeding that need. And IDPs are exploding in relevance because of what Backstage offers. So yes, chicken and egg. But if forced to choose, I’d say the platform drives the tool, and the tool strengthens the platform. This virtuous cycle means platform engineering is more strategic than ever.
📝 Final Word
When I reflect on platform engineering’s trajectory, I see two forces emerging together: An organizational hunger for developer velocity via IDPs — and the arrival of Backstage as the catalyst.
Whether you believe the tool gave birth to the platform, or vice versa, the symbiosis is undeniable: IDPs are hot, and Backstage is the reason. With community governance, open adoption and mountains of plugins, there’s no end to this growth in sight.
Enjoying this ride? Strap in — it’s just getting started.