2025 State of Internal Developer Portals

Self-service tools streamline workflows, automate repetitive tasks, and empower developers to solve problems independently. They enable developers to complete tasks such as creating a cloud resource, scaffolding a new service or API, and creating a Kubernetes cluster, all without having to wait for assistance. When we asked developers how they handled operational tasks, 20% said they used an interface for self-service via a CI/CD tool, 19% said they used self-service via internal tools and 11% said using an internal developer portal. Other methods include provisioning and managing infrastructure through Infrastructure-as-Code tools, creating and managing cloud resources via cloud management tools, and using an API tool to discover, test and deploy APIs.

But we found that many of these tools are not up to scratch, with only 6% of respondents stating they were very satisfied with these tools. Many of these tools require in-depth knowledge of underlying infrastructure, come with an unintuitive interface and don’t allow for standards to be built-in. This negatively impacts developer engagement — with no way to ensure developers follow golden paths, these platforms force developers to resort back to TicketOps.

Only 15% of engineers believe they have clarity over the standards required across different domains. Meanwhile proportionally more engineering leaders express doubt on whether software complies with organizational standards than engineers. This highlights the need for domain owners to be able to better define, communicate, and enforce standards across their organization and for tools that can provide visibility into standards compliance at all levels.

Only 3% of engineers feel the data quality of their metadata repository is completely trustworthy and 50% have doubts about its accuracy. Trust in metadata is crucial, as without it, developers are unlikely to rely on it and will turn to DevOps, SREs, or other colleagues for information. This reliance on institutional knowledge is something engineering teams are striving to move away from. The ideal would be to have a single source of truth for this metadata. 

This trust gap may stem from infrequent metadata updates: 53% of teams update their software asset metadata no more than once per week, potentially leading to outdated or inaccurate information that undermines reliability.

There’s clearly a rise in popularity for using a portal to maintain metadata, with 53% of respondents stating that they use the open source portal Backstage, an internal developer portal like Port, or both. 

However, traditional methods like Confluence, Jira, CMDBs, or even spreadsheets are still relied upon — often because engineering leaders have invested years into tailoring them to fit their needs, built workflows around them, or simply feel resistant to the disruption of transitioning to modern alternatives.