Backstage homepages are not just decorative welcome mats... They’re behavior-shaping, context-setting, and productivity-driving tools.
A thoughtfully crafted homepage can boost adoption, reduce onboarding time, and encourage best practices across your developer portal.
Let’s talk about how and why it matters—and what exactly it should show...
It’s Not Just a Landing Page—It’s a Mindset
Let’s be honest: developers are a picky bunch. They’ll form an opinion in seconds... (minutes? hours?)
In the world of internal developer portals like Backstage, your homepage sets the tone. It’s not about flashy design—it’s about utility, clarity, and guiding behavior.
A great homepage acts like a good buddy: it tells you what’s important, where to go, and what to care about.
Why Homepage Design Shapes Behavior
Humans are visual and contextual creatures. The structure of a Backstage homepage can subtly nudge developers to:
- Use the right tools instead of creating their own shadow infra.
- Pick templates over tribal knowledge, driving consistency.
- Pay attention to ownership and service health, not just push code and pray.
- Start from a single, central source of truth, not ten tabs and five bookmarks.
A poor homepage? That teaches them that the portal is either irrelevant or outdated.
A homepage that doesn’t guide behavior is a missed opportunity to shape your engineering culture.
What Should a Great Backstage Homepage Display?
Every org is different, but a good homepage should reflect your goals—not just generic widgets. Here’s a starter pack based on real-world org priorities:
🎯 For Engineering Goals (Code Quality, Speed, Consistency)
- “Create Component” quick links with golden template labels.
- Overview of most-used or recently deployed templates.
- Linting or security scan status across services (signal over noise).
🧑💻 For Individual Developer Productivity
- “My Services” panel with ownership tags.
- Recent Pull Requests or deployments (especially if integrated with GitHub/GitLab).
- Shortcut to last viewed docs or most-used plugins.
🏢 For Team/Org-Level Insights
- High-level metrics (build failures, incidents, service uptime).
- Highlighted org announcements (e.g., “New Platform Tooling Released!”).
- Service maturity scores or dependency risks.
Pro tip: Include feedback loops. A tiny “Was this useful?” widget can help you evolve the homepage over time.