What's a Platform?

Ask ten people in tech what a "platform" is and you'll get ten answers, or a shrug. The word is everywhere: platform teams, platform strategy, platform engineering, "our new customer platform." But if you watch how it's actually used, the working definition is usually something like an app that's big or important enough that we want to give it a special label.

That's not a definition. That's a promotion.

Recently I was talking with an architect who argued the term is just too nebulous to pin down. I understand why. But I don't think we have to give up on it. The word has to mean something. Definitions are foundational.

The physical platform

A physical platform is a raised surface people stand on so everyone can see and hear them. Musicians perform on platforms. Orators address crowds from them. Ballets are performed on them.

The key point is that the platform isn't the performance. It's the structure underneath that makes the performance accessible to everyone.

A few more things are true of every good stage:

1. It isn't built for one performer. Many different performers use it, and nobody rebuilds it for each one. They might bring their own props, but the stage stays the same from show to show.
2. It's self-service. A performer walks on and starts. Nobody has to explain how to use the stage or run it for them.

What that means for digital platforms

Apply the same test to software and the confusion clears up quickly. A digital platform is a shared foundation that many teams build and run on, that doesn't need customizing for each one, and that they can for the most part use without asking its owners for help.

By that standard, a big app isn't a platform, no matter how big it is. It's the show, not the stage. In fact, most big apps depend on platforms: cloud for hosting, code and delivery platforms for building and shipping, identity for logging users in, observability for keeping an eye on everything.

So the next time something gets called a platform, ask a simple question: Is this the thing people perform on, or is it the performance?