Our team needed a developer portal — a single place to track services, APIs, teams, and ownership. Backstage was the obvious choice, but the reality was painful: Node.js + React + TypeScript plugins, complex deploy, and 16GB RAM just to run it.
So I built FrontStage — an open-source alternative that does the same job without the complexity.
Stack: Python/FastAPI, Alpine.js, Tailwind, Redis, YAML configs, Docker Compose
Key differences vs Backstage:
- 1GB RAM vs 16GB
- 0.8 CPU vs 4 CPU
- No React, no TypeScript plugins — just Python and simple templates
- Your DevOps team already knows the stack
- One repo, readable code — easy to customize yourself or with AI assistants
What it does today:
- Software Catalog: services, APIs, databases, libraries, teams
- Ownership tracking ("who owns this microservice?")
- Swagger docs out of the box
- Works great as a RAG data source (structured YAML = easy to index)
Quick start is just docker compose up. YAML configs, no database migrations.
MIT license. Would love feedback from anyone who's dealt with Backstage pain.
Top comments (1)
Thanks for sharing!
I love the streamlined approach and the reasoning behind it.
Out of curiosity, how does the state management/persistence work under the hood?