Red Hat Developer Hub (RHDH) is an Internal Developer Portal that brings together all the tools, services, and information your development teams need in one unified interface. Think of it as your team's central command center for building, deploying, and managing software. In this getting started guide, you'll learn the fundamentals of RHDH, understand its key features and benefits, and discover how to navigate and use the platform effectively to improve your daily development workflow.
!!! tip "Built on Open Source Innovation" RHDH is based on CNCF Backstage, the open-source Internal Developer Portal created by Spotify. This means you get all the power and flexibility of Backstage, plus enterprise-grade support and additional features from Red Hat.
Modern software development is complex. Developers often find themselves:
- Jumping between tools: GitHub, Jira, Jenkins, monitoring dashboards, documentation sites
- Searching for information: "Where's the API documentation?" "How do I deploy this service?" "Who owns this component?"
- Repeating setup work: Creating new projects, configuring CI/CD pipelines, setting up monitoring
- Losing context: Switching between multiple tabs and applications to understand a single service
This context switching and information hunting slows down development and increases frustration.
Red Hat Developer Hub consolidates everything into a single, searchable portal where developers can:
!!! success "Discover Everything" Find all your applications, services, APIs, and documentation in one place. No more hunting across multiple systems.
!!! success "Self-Service Everything" Create new projects, deploy services, and access resources through automated templates and workflows—no tickets required.
!!! success "Understand Everything" See relationships between services, view documentation, check API contracts, and understand dependencies at a glance.
!!! success "Extend Everything" Add plugins and integrations to connect your favorite tools, from CI/CD pipelines to monitoring dashboards.
RHDH delivers value across your entire organization. Here's what each group gains:
!!! info "For Developers 🚀"
⚡ Faster onboarding with centralized documentation and templates
🔍 Less context switching between tools
⚙️ Self-service capabilities reduce wait times
👀 Clear visibility into services and their relationships
!!! info "For Platform Teams 🔧"
✅ Standardize best practices through templates
😌 Reduce support burden with self-service options
🛡️ Improve governance and compliance
📈 Better visibility into your software ecosystem
!!! info "For Organizations 🏢"
🐎 Accelerate development velocity
❤️ Improve developer satisfaction and retention
💰 Reduce operational overhead
🤝 Enable better collaboration across teams
Unlike building your own portal from scratch, RHDH provides:
- Production-ready out of the box: Pre-configured and ready to use
- Enterprise support: Backed by Red Hat's support team
- Extensive plugin ecosystem: Hundreds of Backstage-compatible plugins available
- Flexible deployment: Runs on any Kubernetes distribution, including OpenShift
- Active community: Built on CNCF Backstage with a vibrant open-source community
Now that you understand what RHDH is and why it's valuable, let's explore how to navigate and use it effectively. Continue reading to learn about:
- Navigating the interface - Learn your way around
- The Software Catalog - Discover and manage your services
- TechDocs - Access and create documentation
- APIs - Find and test APIs
- Templates - Use and create project templates
- Search - Find anything quickly
- Developer Lightspeed - Get AI-powered assistance
*[RHDH]: Red Hat Developer Hub *[CNCF]: Cloud Native Computing Foundation *[IDP]: Internal Developer Platform