<p>This is a guest conversation episode of <strong>Ship It Weekly</strong> (separate from the weekly news recaps).</p><p>I sat down with Danny Teller, a DevOps Architect and Tech Lead Manager at Tipalti, to talk about internal developer platforms and the reality behind “just set up a developer portal.” We get into Backstage versus internal IDPs, why adoption is the real battle, and why platform/DevEx maturity matters more than whatever tool you pick.</p><p><strong>What we covered</strong></p><p>Backstage vs internal IDPs Backstage is a solid starting point for a developer portal, but it doesn’t magically create standards, ownership, or platform maturity. We talk about when Backstage fits, and when teams end up building internal tooling anyway.</p><p>DevEx muscle (the make-or-break) Danny’s take: the portal UI is the easy part. The hard part is the ongoing work that makes it useful: paved roads, sane defaults, support, and keeping the catalog/data accurate so engineers trust it.</p><p>Where teams get burned Common failure mode: teams ship a portal first, then realize they don’t have the resourcing, ownership, or workflows behind it. Adoption fades fast if the portal doesn’t remove real friction.</p><p>A build vs buy gut check We walk through practical signals that push you toward open source Backstage, a managed Backstage offering, or a commercial portal. We also hit the maintenance trap: if you build too much, you’ve created a second product.</p><p><strong>Links and resources </strong></p><p>Danny Teller's Linkedin: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/danny-teller/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/danny-teller/</a></p><p>matlas — one CLI for Atlas and MongoDB: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://github.com/teabranch/matlas-cli">https://github.com/teabranch/matlas-cli</a></p><p>Backstage: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://backstage.io/">https://backstage.io/</a> </p><p>Roadie (managed Backstage): <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://roadie.io/">https://roadie.io/</a> </p><p>Port: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.port.io/">https://www.port.io/</a> </p><p>Cortex: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.cortex.io/">https://www.cortex.io/</a> </p><p>OpsLevel: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.opslevel.com/">https://www.opslevel.com/</a> </p><p>Atlassian Compass: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.atlassian.com/software/compass">https://www.atlassian.com/software/compass</a> </p><p>Humanitec Platform Orchestrator: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://humanitec.com/products/platform-orchestrator">https://humanitec.com/products/platform-orchestrator</a> </p><p>Northflank: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://northflank.com/">https://northflank.com/</a></p><p>If you enjoyed this episode Ship It Weekly is still the weekly news recap, and I’m dropping these guest convos in between. Follow/subscribe so you catch both, and if this was useful, share it with a platform/devex friend and leave a quick rating or review. It helps more than it should.</p><p>Visit our website at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.shipitweekly.fm">https://www.shipitweekly.fm</a></p>