Live demo available now
Self-hosted release coming March 2026

Stop Maintaining.
Start Using.

The intelligent developer platform that fits your stack, not the other way around.

Explore a fully populated portal with 100+ services, search documentation, view Kubernetes clusters, browse org charts, and more—read-only access with real data

Try Live Demo
Live demo credentials:
demouser@shoehorn.dev
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Search Speed
15min
Setup Time
100%
Self-Hosted

Why Shoehorn

Built for teams who need a production-ready platform without the complexity

Traditional IDPs
  • × Manual configuration - Endless YAML files
  • × Weeks of setup - Complex plugin systems
  • × Dedicated team required - Hard to maintain
  • × Migration headaches - Rewrite everything
Shoehorn
  • Auto-discovery - Zero manual config
  • 15-minute setup - Works out of the box
  • Nothing to maintain - Turnkey platform - Small team friendly
  • Backstage compatible - Use existing files
Backstage Compatible
Works with existing catalog-info.yaml files—no migration required Learn more →

How It Works

From connection to complete visibility in three simple steps

1

Connect Your Stack

Point Shoehorn to your GitHub organization, Kubernetes clusters, and Git repositories. One-time setup, zero configuration files.

2

Auto-Discovery Runs

Shoehorn automatically discovers services, APIs, documentation, dependencies, and team ownership. No YAML files to maintain.

3

Start Using

Search documentation, view service dependencies, scaffold new services, and manage operations—all from one beautiful interface.

Continuous Sync

Built on event-driven architecture, Shoehorn stays in sync with your infrastructure in real-time. New services, updated docs, and configuration changes are automatically detected and indexed as they happen.

Works Your Way

Choose your approach based on your workflow:

K8s Agents
Real-time cluster sync via lightweight agents
GitOps Manifests
Declarative YAML files auto-discovered
UI Creation
Manual entity creation in the portal

Mix and match as needed—use what works for your team

Built for Real Problems

The daily challenges platform teams face—solved automatically

"Who owns this service?"

A new developer joins. Production is down. A service needs updating. Who do you ask?

Auto-discovered service catalog with team ownership, dependencies, and contact info

Instant search finds services, APIs, and owners in under 200ms

"Where's that config documented?"

Documentation scattered across Confluence, GitHub wikis, READMEs, and Notion. Finding anything takes forever.

Hybrid search (BM25 + Vector) across all your docs, regardless of where they live

Auto-indexed from GitHub, Confluence, and local markdown files

"I need to create a new service"

Copy-paste old projects. Hunt down the right boilerplate. Spend hours on setup instead of building features.

Backstage-compatible templates that work out of the box

Pre-configured CI/CD, monitoring, and deployments following your org's patterns

"What's running in prod?"

Multiple Kubernetes clusters. Dozens of services. No single source of truth for what's actually deployed.

Real-time cluster discovery shows all deployments across all environments

Day-2 operations like restarts, rollbacks, and access grants in one place

Built for Platform Teams

Every admin operation can be managed programmatically or through the UI

Terraform Provider

Declare your entire platform configuration as code

REST API

Automate everything with our comprehensive API

Admin UI

Or manage everything visually with one click

Manage users, teams, policies, integrations, and more—version controlled and repeatable

See It In Action

A unified interface for service catalogs, documentation, Kubernetes management, and team organization

Shoehorn Dashboard
Swipe or tap
dashboard

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Shoehorn?
Shoehorn is an intelligent developer platform for teams tired of overwhelming dashboards and endless configuration. We auto-discover your services, docs, and infrastructure—then surface only what matters. Beautiful UI, instant search, invisible AI assistance. Your stack stays yours; we just make it visible.
How is this different from Backstage?
Backstage is powerful but requires significant engineering effort to set up and maintain. Shoehorn is designed to be production-ready in under 15 minutes with auto-discovery and minimal configuration. We're built on a scalable microservice architecture with event-driven design—API-first with CLI available, opinionated but batteries included. It's modular: use what you want, skip what you don't (maybe just DocsHub?). We're Backstage-compatible—your existing catalog.yaml files and templates work as-is, no migration required. If you want to convert to native format, we offer automatic migration tools.
Can I migrate from Backstage?

Yes, zero migration required. Shoehorn is fully compatible with Backstage catalog files:

  • catalog-info.yaml files are auto-discovered and indexed
  • Existing service catalogs work immediately—no changes needed
  • Run Backstage and Shoehorn in parallel during evaluation

Your existing Backstage service catalog will work seamlessly in Shoehorn, allowing you to evaluate the platform without any migration effort.

How do I install Shoehorn?
Shoehorn is self-hosted and runs on your infrastructure. Install using Docker Compose for quick testing, or use our Helm chart for production Kubernetes deployments. We ship multi-architecture containers (amd64 and arm64) that work on any platform.
What's included in the alpha release?
The release includes everything. We might charge for some integrations and advanced features in the future.
Is Shoehorn free to use?
Yes! Shoehorn is free to self-host. Core functionality has no usage limits. Run it on your own infrastructure with full control over your data. We'll offer optional managed hosting and support in the future.
What identity providers do you support?
Shoehorn currently supports Zitadel & Okta out of the box. Support for other OIDC providers like Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD) and Google Workspace is coming soon.

Shoehorn

The intelligent developer platform that fits your stack, not the other way around.

Not just a portal. An intelligent platform for engineering.

Self-Hosted • Your Infrastructure • Your Data

Made with ❤️ in Sweden