Backstage Plugins — How to Extend Your Developer Portal

Backstage without plugins is an empty portal. With plugins, it’s a command center for all of engineering.

Must-Have Plugins¶

• Kubernetes: Pod status, logs, events
• GitHub/GitLab: PR status, CI pipeline
• PagerDuty: On-call schedule, incidents
• Cost insights: Cloud spending per service
• Tech Radar: Technology decision visualization

Software Templates¶

The most powerful feature. A template defines: repo, CI, K8s manifests, monitoring. A dev clicks New Service → production-ready setup in 5 minutes.

Plugins Make Backstage Valuable¶

Invest in selecting and configuring plugins. A well-configured Backstage = single pane of glass.