A lightweight open-source developer portal — a Backstage alternative that's easy to deploy and maintain on your own.
Backstage is powerful but heavy: Node.js, TypeScript, React plugins, complex deployment, and a steep learning curve. FrontStage solves the same problem — a single portal for your teams — without the unnecessary complexity.
| Category | FrontStage | Backstage |
|---|---|---|
| Server stack | Python / FastAPI | Node.js / TypeScript |
| Frontend | Alpine.js + Tailwind | React + Material UI |
| Configs | YAML | YAML + TypeScript plugins |
| DB / Cache | Redis | PostgreSQL |
| Customization | Python / Jinja | React plugin system |
| License | MIT | Apache 2.0 |
| Recommended RAM | 1 GB | 16 GB |
| Recommended CPU | 0.8 CPU | 4 CPU |
Key advantages:
- DevOps teams understand the stack — it's Python. No dedicated frontend developer needed.
- Alpine.js instead of React: templates are transparent, easy to debug and extend.
- Swagger documentation out of the box — straightforward to integrate any backends.
- Simple, readable code in a single repo — easy to customize yourself or with AI assistants.
- Great fit for enterprise AI/RAG: structured YAML data is easy to index.
- The FrontStage developer and community focus on resource consumption optimization.
Backstage problems — debunking.en.md
A centralized registry of all services, libraries, APIs, databases, and their owners.
Solves the "who owns this microservice?" problem — all infrastructure information in one place, in Git, in a readable format.
Catalog entities: Service, API, Database, Library, Team.
You can use an LLM to quickly generate configs from your existing documentation:
mv catalog catalog_example
claude -p 'Based on @docs/catalog/SPEC.md and the example in @catalog_example — create ./catalog for my team and services: [paste your docs here]'docker network create my-proxy-network
docker compose up -d --buildOpen: http://localhost:8795/
- Server: Python 3.10+, FastAPI, Jinja2, Nginx
- Frontend: Alpine.js, Tailwind CSS
- Cache: Redis
- Configs: YAML
- Deploy: Docker, Docker Compose