{"id":666994,"date":"2025-05-04T19:49:28","date_gmt":"2025-05-04T16:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/backstage-access-spotifys-dev-tools-side-hustle-is-growing-legs\/"},"modified":"2025-05-04T19:49:28","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T16:49:28","slug":"backstage-access-spotifys-dev-tools-side-hustle-is-growing-legs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/backstage-access-spotifys-dev-tools-side-hustle-is-growing-legs\/","title":{"rendered":"Backstage access: Spotify\u2019s dev tools side-hustle is growing legs"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_84 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a26bffeceede\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a26bffeceede\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/backstage-access-spotifys-dev-tools-side-hustle-is-growing-legs\/#Oven-baked\" >Oven-baked<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/backstage-access-spotifys-dev-tools-side-hustle-is-growing-legs\/#Growing_confidence\" >Growing confidence<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Spotify generates the vast bulk of its income from ads and sub<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">script<\/a>ions, but for the past few years the music-streaming giant has also been quietly building out a developer tooling business. <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/backstage.io\/\">Backstage<\/a>, a project it open-sourced in 2020, has been adopted by more than 2 million developers across 3,400 organizations, including Airbnb, LinkedIn, Twilio, and American Airlines.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Backstage helps companies build customized \u201cinternal developer portals\u201d (IDPs), bringing order to their infrastructure chaos by combining all their tooling, apps, data, services, APIs, and documents in a single interface.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Want to monitor Kubernetes, view cloud costs, or check your CI\/CD status? Enter Backstage.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/BackGif.gif?w=640\" alt=\"Backstage in action\" class=\"wp-image-3000578\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><span class=\"wp-element-caption__text\">Backstage in action<\/span><span class=\"wp-block-image__credits\"><strong>Image Credits:<\/strong>Spotify<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), which accepted Backstage as an incubating project <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cncf.io\/blog\/2022\/03\/15\/backstage-project-joins-the-cncf-incubator\/\">in 2022<\/a>, reports that Backstage was one of its <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cncf.io\/blog\/2025\/01\/29\/2024-year-in-review-of-cncf-and-top-30-open-source-project-velocity\/\">top 5 projects last year<\/a> in terms of velocity and activity. And it\u2019s this momentum that is leading Spotify to double down, with various premium tools and services on the horizon.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-oven-baked\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Oven-baked\"><\/span>Oven-baked<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Companies can already use the core Backstage product for free, including an array of <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/backstage.io\/plugins\/\">open source plugins<\/a> that extend its functionality. But Spotify started selling premium plugins in 2022, such as <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/backstage.spotify.com\/partners\/spotify\/plugin\/insights\/\">Backstage Insights<\/a>, which displays data related to active Backstage usage within an organization. And last year, Spotify got serious about its dev tools business play, announcing <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/backstage.spotify.com\/products\/portal\/\">Spotify Portal for Backstage<\/a> in beta: a premium, oven-baked incarnation for those lacking the resources (or inclination) to set everything up themselves. \u201cBackstage in a box,\u201d is the <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/general\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"3\" title=\"General\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">general<\/a> idea.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The fully managed SaaS product is now edging toward general availability in the coming months, with design partners and customers including the Linux Foundation and Pager Duty already on board.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe discovered that there were a lot of different customer profiles,\u201d <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/tysonsinger\/\">Tyson Singer<\/a> (pictured above), Spotify\u2019s head of <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/technology\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"4\" title=\"Technology\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">technology<\/a> and platforms, explained to TechCrunch in an interview at KubeCon last month. \u201cOur original theory was that Backstage was going to be bigger for mid-size to large enterprises dealing with a lot of complexity, but we found that small companies also see these same problems. And so having a hosted version makes everything so much easier.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-techcrunch-inline-cta\">\n<div class=\"inline-cta__wrapper\">\n<p>Techcrunch event<\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-cta__content\">\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__location\">Berkeley, CA<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__separator\">|<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__date\">June 5<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<span>BOOK NOW<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Spotify also teased a couple of new premium Portal plugins at KubeCon, including AiKA (\u201cAI knowledge assistant\u201d), which is basically a chatbot initially developed internally for its own employees.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"911\" height=\"483\" src=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/image00293.png?w=680\" alt=\"AiKA from Spotify\" class=\"wp-image-3000517\" srcset=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/image00293.png 911w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/image00293.png?resize=150,80 150w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/image00293.png?resize=300,159 300w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/image00293.png?resize=768,407 768w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/image00293.png?resize=680,361 680w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/image00293.png?resize=430,228 430w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/image00293.png?resize=720,382 720w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/image00293.png?resize=900,477 900w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/image00293.png?resize=800,424 800w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/image00293.png?resize=668,354 668w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/image00293.png?resize=708,375 708w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 911px) 100vw, 911px\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><span class=\"wp-element-caption__text\">AiKA from Spotify<\/span><span class=\"wp-block-image__credits\"><strong>Image Credits:<\/strong>Spotify<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The result of a 2023 hackathon, Spotify says that AiKA is now used by 25% of its workforce weekly to query the company\u2019s collective knowledge base. So rather than bombarding support channels in Slack, employees can just ask AiKA, which is trained on its own internal documents and data. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Singer also says that AiKA\u2019s utility \u2014 providing instant answers to questions \u2014 motivates employees to make sure all their documents are up-to-date because it makes AiKA smarter. If someone doesn\u2019t get a good response to a question, they can see what source was used in the response, and provide feedback to ensure the source document is improved.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt [AiKA] kind of sounds simple, but it\u2019s powerful, and we got super-high adoption very quickly internally,\u201d Singer said. \u201c[I think why is because] it\u2019s not just developers that are using it \u2014 everybody in the R&amp;D organization has gotten into it, which also brings more people into the Backstage ecosystem. But also it creates this very positive fly-wheel between quality and discovery.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Spotify has confirmed that an alpha version of AiKA is set to launch for third parties imminently. And while it won\u2019t be at feature parity with its own internal version initially, it should go some way toward bolstering Backstage\u2019s stickiness as a premium product in the long run.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1600\" height=\"868\" src=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Aika.png?w=680\" alt=\"AiKA from Spotify\" class=\"wp-image-3000515\" srcset=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Aika.png 1600w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Aika.png?resize=150,81 150w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Aika.png?resize=300,163 300w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Aika.png?resize=768,417 768w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Aika.png?resize=680,369 680w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Aika.png?resize=1200,651 1200w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Aika.png?resize=1280,694 1280w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Aika.png?resize=430,233 430w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Aika.png?resize=720,391 720w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Aika.png?resize=900,488 900w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Aika.png?resize=800,434 800w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Aika.png?resize=1536,833 1536w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Aika.png?resize=668,362 668w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Aika.png?resize=1137,617 1137w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Aika.png?resize=708,384 708w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><span class=\"wp-element-caption__text\">AiKA from Spotify<\/span><span class=\"wp-block-image__credits\"><strong>Image Credits:<\/strong>Spotify<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-growing-confidence\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Growing_confidence\"><\/span>Growing confidence<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Backstage isn\u2019t the only home-grown developer product Spotify is looking to monetize. Some 20 months ago the company announced <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/confidence.spotify.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Confidence<\/a>, an A\/B experimentation platform that has remained in stealth ever since.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe have a few customers who are paying [for Confidence], but we are really focused on Portal right now,\u201d Singer said. \u201cWe\u2019re being very selective about the customers that we let in the door.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to Singer, Spotify will have more to say about Confidence later this year, though he did hint at potential synergies between Confidence and Portal in the form of a plugin that brings some simple <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/confidence.spotify.com\/blog\/feature-flags\">feature-flagging functionality<\/a> into Portal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When all is said and done, creating a developer tooling side-hustle on top of its day job as an online music emporium has surely been a major undertaking. But there has been good reason for all of this. More than a decade ago, Spotify created its own container orchestration platform called <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/spotify\/helios\">Helios<\/a> to support its transition to a <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.infoq.com\/news\/2015\/12\/microservices-spotify\/\">microservices<\/a> architecture. While Spotify eventually open sourced Helios to spur wider uptake, it ultimately lost out to Google\u2019s Kubernetes, which went on to conquer the world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Spotify ditched Helios and joined the throngs on Kubernetes \u2014 a \u201cpainful\u201d decision at the time. And what we\u2019re seeing now with Backstage is a response to that: an effort to ensure that Backstage <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/newsletter.getdx.com\/p\/backstage-and-the-developer-portal-market\">is the industry standard IDP<\/a>, and that its own developers aren\u2019t forced to transition to something else that comes along.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWhen you have a product that gets replaced by an external product, particularly an open source one, that migration cost is just tremendous,\u201d Singer said. \u201cAnd so we decided that we don\u2019t want that to happen to a product that is literally the foundation of how we do development at Spotify.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While Spotify went some way toward heading off that problem when it open-sourced Backstage in 2020, the premium stuff that\u2019s now following is really to ensure that it sticks. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe\u2019re a business \u2014 and we also want to build a healthy business on top of all this,\u201d Singer said. \u201cWe\u2019re not just trying to cover costs. At the end of the day, we have a lot of value trapped inside Spotify right now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMN63nwsw68G3Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more like this article, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/category\/technology\/\" target=\"_blank\" >Technology<\/a><\/span> category.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/05\/04\/backstage-access-spotifys-dev-tools-side-hustle-is-growing-legs\/\" target=\"_blank\" >Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spotify generates the vast bulk of its income from ads and subscriptions, but for the past few years the music-streaming giant has also been quietly building out a developer tooling business. Backstage, a project it open-sourced in 2020, has been adopted by more than 2 million developers across 3,400 organizations, including Airbnb, LinkedIn, Twilio, and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":666995,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Tyson-Singer-1-e1744729802703.jpg?w=960","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[75885,83071,156071,23504,156072],"class_list":["post-666994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-enterprise","tag-open-source","tag-backstage","tag-spotify","tag-tyson-singer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}