diff --git a/plugins/techdocs-backend/api-report.md b/plugins/techdocs-backend/api-report.md
index 2bf4664f77..155f096614 100644
--- a/plugins/techdocs-backend/api-report.md
+++ b/plugins/techdocs-backend/api-report.md
@@ -3,9 +3,11 @@
 > Do not edit this file. It is a report generated by [API Extractor](https://api-extractor.com/).
 
 ```ts
+/// <reference types="node" />
+
 import { CatalogApi } from '@backstage/catalog-client';
 import { Config } from '@backstage/config';
-import { DocumentCollator } from '@backstage/search-common';
+import { DocumentCollatorFactory } from '@backstage/search-common';
 import { Entity } from '@backstage/catalog-model';
 import express from 'express';
 import { GeneratorBuilder } from '@backstage/techdocs-common';
@@ -16,14 +18,15 @@ import { PluginCacheManager } from '@backstage/backend-common';
 import { PluginEndpointDiscovery } from '@backstage/backend-common';
 import { PreparerBuilder } from '@backstage/techdocs-common';
 import { PublisherBase } from '@backstage/techdocs-common';
+import { Readable } from 'stream';
 import { TechDocsDocument } from '@backstage/techdocs-common';
 import { TokenManager } from '@backstage/backend-common';
 
 // @public
 export function createRouter(options: RouterOptions): Promise<express.Router>;
 
-// @public
-export class DefaultTechDocsCollator implements DocumentCollator {
+// @public @deprecated
+export class DefaultTechDocsCollator {
   // (undocumented)
   protected applyArgsToFormat(
     format: string,
@@ -42,6 +45,21 @@ export class DefaultTechDocsCollator implements DocumentCollator {
   readonly visibilityPermission: Permission;
 }
 
+// @public
+export class DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory implements DocumentCollatorFactory {
+  // (undocumented)
+  static fromConfig(
+    config: Config,
+    options: TechDocsCollatorFactoryOptions,
+  ): DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory;
+  // (undocumented)
+  getCollator(): Promise<Readable>;
+  // (undocumented)
+  readonly type: string;
+  // (undocumented)
+  readonly visibilityPermission: Permission;
+}
+
 // @public
 export interface DocsBuildStrategy {
   // (undocumented)
@@ -81,6 +99,17 @@ export type ShouldBuildParameters = {
   entity: Entity;
 };
 
+// @public
+export type TechDocsCollatorFactoryOptions = {
+  discovery: PluginEndpointDiscovery;
+  logger: Logger_2;
+  tokenManager: TokenManager;
+  locationTemplate?: string;
+  catalogClient?: CatalogApi;
+  parallelismLimit?: number;
+  legacyPathCasing?: boolean;
+};
+
 // @public
 export type TechDocsCollatorOptions = {
   discovery: PluginEndpointDiscovery;
diff --git a/plugins/techdocs-backend/package.json b/plugins/techdocs-backend/package.json
index 7e8241bfea..20100f4848 100644
--- a/plugins/techdocs-backend/package.json
+++ b/plugins/techdocs-backend/package.json
@@ -56,6 +56,7 @@
   },
   "devDependencies": {
     "@backstage/cli": "^0.14.1",
+    "@backstage/plugin-search-backend-node": "0.4.7",
     "@backstage/test-utils": "^0.2.6",
     "@types/dockerode": "^3.3.0",
     "msw": "^0.35.0",
diff --git a/plugins/techdocs-backend/src/index.ts b/plugins/techdocs-backend/src/index.ts
index 01acbea2cc..570da95092 100644
--- a/plugins/techdocs-backend/src/index.ts
+++ b/plugins/techdocs-backend/src/index.ts
@@ -29,8 +29,14 @@ export type {
   ShouldBuildParameters,
 } from './service';
 
-export { DefaultTechDocsCollator } from './search';
-export type { TechDocsCollatorOptions } from './search';
+export {
+  DefaultTechDocsCollator,
+  DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory,
+} from './search';
+export type {
+  TechDocsCollatorFactoryOptions,
+  TechDocsCollatorOptions,
+} from './search';
 
 /**
  * @deprecated Use directly from @backstage/techdocs-common
diff --git a/plugins/techdocs-backend/src/search/DefaultTechDocsCollator.test.ts b/plugins/techdocs-backend/src/search/DefaultTechDocsCollator.test.ts
index d9f75767a7..887dc60b1a 100644
--- a/plugins/techdocs-backend/src/search/DefaultTechDocsCollator.test.ts
+++ b/plugins/techdocs-backend/src/search/DefaultTechDocsCollator.test.ts
@@ -72,18 +72,6 @@ const expectedEntities: Entity[] = [
       owner: 'someone',
     },
   },
-  {
-    apiVersion: 'backstage.io/v1alpha1',
-    kind: 'Component',
-    metadata: {
-      name: 'test-entity',
-      description: 'The expected description',
-    },
-    spec: {
-      type: 'some-type',
-      lifecycle: 'experimental',
-    },
-  },
 ];
 
 describe('DefaultTechDocsCollator with legacyPathCasing configuration', () => {
diff --git a/plugins/techdocs-backend/src/search/DefaultTechDocsCollator.ts b/plugins/techdocs-backend/src/search/DefaultTechDocsCollator.ts
index 73c030cc51..d36e1c0ae5 100644
--- a/plugins/techdocs-backend/src/search/DefaultTechDocsCollator.ts
+++ b/plugins/techdocs-backend/src/search/DefaultTechDocsCollator.ts
@@ -24,7 +24,6 @@ import {
   RELATION_OWNED_BY,
   stringifyEntityRef,
 } from '@backstage/catalog-model';
-import { DocumentCollator } from '@backstage/search-common';
 import fetch from 'node-fetch';
 import unescape from 'lodash/unescape';
 import { Logger } from 'winston';
@@ -69,8 +68,10 @@ type EntityInfo = {
  * A search collator responsible for gathering and transforming TechDocs documents.
  *
  * @public
+ * @deprecated Upgrade to a more recent `@backstage/search-backend-node` and
+ * use `DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory` instead.
  */
-export class DefaultTechDocsCollator implements DocumentCollator {
+export class DefaultTechDocsCollator {
   public readonly type: string = 'techdocs';
   public readonly visibilityPermission = catalogEntityReadPermission;
 
diff --git a/plugins/techdocs-backend/src/search/DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory.test.ts b/plugins/techdocs-backend/src/search/DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory.test.ts
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..fafaae71b9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/plugins/techdocs-backend/src/search/DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory.test.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,245 @@
+/*
+ * Copyright 2022 The Backstage Authors
+ *
+ * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+ * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+ * You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+import {
+  getVoidLogger,
+  PluginEndpointDiscovery,
+  TokenManager,
+} from '@backstage/backend-common';
+import { Entity } from '@backstage/catalog-model';
+import { ConfigReader } from '@backstage/config';
+import { TestPipeline } from '@backstage/plugin-search-backend-node';
+import { setupRequestMockHandlers } from '@backstage/test-utils';
+import { rest } from 'msw';
+import { setupServer } from 'msw/node';
+import { Readable } from 'stream';
+import { DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory } from './DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory';
+
+const logger = getVoidLogger();
+
+const mockSearchDocIndex = {
+  config: {
+    lang: ['en'],
+    min_search_length: 3,
+    prebuild_index: false,
+    separator: '[\\s\\-]+',
+  },
+  docs: [
+    {
+      location: '',
+      text: 'docs docs docs',
+      title: 'Home',
+    },
+    {
+      location: 'local-development/',
+      text: 'Docs for first subtitle',
+      title: 'Local development',
+    },
+    {
+      location: 'local-development/#development',
+      text: 'Docs for sub-subtitle',
+      title: 'Development',
+    },
+  ],
+};
+
+const expectedEntities: Entity[] = [
+  {
+    apiVersion: 'backstage.io/v1alpha1',
+    kind: 'Component',
+    metadata: {
+      title: 'Test Entity with Docs!',
+      name: 'test-entity-with-docs',
+      description: 'Documented description',
+      annotations: {
+        'backstage.io/techdocs-ref': './',
+      },
+    },
+    spec: {
+      type: 'dog',
+      lifecycle: 'experimental',
+      owner: 'someone',
+    },
+  },
+];
+
+describe('DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory', () => {
+  const config = new ConfigReader({});
+  const mockDiscoveryApi: jest.Mocked<PluginEndpointDiscovery> = {
+    getBaseUrl: jest.fn().mockResolvedValue('http://test-backend'),
+    getExternalBaseUrl: jest.fn(),
+  };
+  const mockTokenManager: jest.Mocked<TokenManager> = {
+    getToken: jest.fn().mockResolvedValue({ token: '' }),
+    authenticate: jest.fn(),
+  };
+  const options = {
+    discovery: mockDiscoveryApi,
+    logger: getVoidLogger(),
+    tokenManager: mockTokenManager,
+  };
+
+  it('has expected type', () => {
+    const factory = DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory.fromConfig(config, options);
+    expect(factory.type).toBe('techdocs');
+  });
+
+  describe('getCollator', () => {
+    let factory: DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory;
+    let collator: Readable;
+
+    const worker = setupServer();
+    setupRequestMockHandlers(worker);
+
+    beforeEach(async () => {
+      factory = DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory.fromConfig(config, options);
+      collator = await factory.getCollator();
+
+      worker.use(
+        rest.get(
+          'http://test-backend/static/docs/default/Component/test-entity-with-docs/search/search_index.json',
+          (_, res, ctx) => res(ctx.status(200), ctx.json(mockSearchDocIndex)),
+        ),
+        rest.get('http://test-backend/entities', (req, res, ctx) => {
+          // Imitate offset/limit pagination.
+          const offset = parseInt(
+            req.url.searchParams.get('offset') || '0',
+            10,
+          );
+          const limit = parseInt(
+            req.url.searchParams.get('limit') || '500',
+            10,
+          );
+
+          // Limit 50 corresponds to a case testing pagination.
+          if (limit === 50) {
+            // Return 50 copies of invalid entities on the first request.
+            if (offset === 0) {
+              return res(ctx.status(200), ctx.json(Array(50).fill({})));
+            }
+            // Then just the regular 2 on the second.
+            return res(ctx.status(200), ctx.json(expectedEntities));
+          }
+          return res(
+            ctx.status(200),
+            ctx.json(expectedEntities.slice(offset, limit + offset)),
+          );
+        }),
+      );
+    });
+
+    it('returns a readable stream', async () => {
+      expect(collator).toBeInstanceOf(Readable);
+    });
+
+    it('fetches from the configured catalog and tech docs services', async () => {
+      const pipeline = TestPipeline.withSubject(collator);
+      const { documents } = await pipeline.execute();
+      expect(mockDiscoveryApi.getBaseUrl).toHaveBeenCalledWith('catalog');
+      expect(mockDiscoveryApi.getBaseUrl).toHaveBeenCalledWith('techdocs');
+      expect(documents).toHaveLength(mockSearchDocIndex.docs.length);
+    });
+
+    it('should create documents for each tech docs search index', async () => {
+      const pipeline = TestPipeline.withSubject(collator);
+      const { documents } = await pipeline.execute();
+      const entity = expectedEntities[0];
+      documents.forEach((document, idx) => {
+        expect(document).toMatchObject({
+          title: mockSearchDocIndex.docs[idx].title,
+          location: `/docs/default/component/${entity.metadata.name}/${mockSearchDocIndex.docs[idx].location}`,
+          text: mockSearchDocIndex.docs[idx].text,
+          namespace: 'default',
+          entityTitle: entity!.metadata.title,
+          componentType: entity!.spec!.type,
+          lifecycle: entity!.spec!.lifecycle,
+          owner: '',
+          kind: entity.kind.toLocaleLowerCase('en-US'),
+          name: entity.metadata.name,
+        });
+      });
+    });
+
+    it('maps a returned entity with a custom locationTemplate', async () => {
+      // Provide an alternate location template.
+      factory = DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory.fromConfig(config, {
+        discovery: mockDiscoveryApi,
+        tokenManager: mockTokenManager,
+        locationTemplate: '/software/:name',
+        logger,
+      });
+      collator = await factory.getCollator();
+
+      const pipeline = TestPipeline.withSubject(collator);
+      const { documents } = await pipeline.execute();
+
+      expect(documents[0]).toMatchObject({
+        location: '/software/test-entity-with-docs',
+      });
+    });
+
+    it('paginates through catalog entities using batchSize', async () => {
+      // A parallelismLimit of 1 is a catalog limit of 50 per request. Code
+      // above in the /entities handler ensures valid entities are only
+      // returned on the second page.
+      factory = DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory.fromConfig(config, {
+        ...options,
+        parallelismLimit: 1,
+      });
+      collator = await factory.getCollator();
+
+      const pipeline = TestPipeline.withSubject(collator);
+      const { documents } = await pipeline.execute();
+
+      // Only 1 entity with TechDocs configured multipled by 3 pages.
+      expect(documents).toHaveLength(3);
+    });
+
+    describe('with legacyPathCasing configuration', () => {
+      beforeEach(async () => {
+        const legacyConfig = new ConfigReader({
+          techdocs: {
+            legacyUseCaseSensitiveTripletPaths: true,
+          },
+        });
+        factory = DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory.fromConfig(
+          legacyConfig,
+          options,
+        );
+        collator = await factory.getCollator();
+      });
+
+      it('should create documents for each tech docs search index', async () => {
+        const pipeline = TestPipeline.withSubject(collator);
+        const { documents } = await pipeline.execute();
+        const entity = expectedEntities[0];
+        documents.forEach((document, idx) => {
+          expect(document).toMatchObject({
+            title: mockSearchDocIndex.docs[idx].title,
+            location: `/docs/default/Component/${entity.metadata.name}/${mockSearchDocIndex.docs[idx].location}`,
+            text: mockSearchDocIndex.docs[idx].text,
+            namespace: 'default',
+            entityTitle: entity!.metadata.title,
+            componentType: entity!.spec!.type,
+            lifecycle: entity!.spec!.lifecycle,
+            owner: '',
+            kind: entity.kind,
+            name: entity.metadata.name,
+          });
+        });
+      });
+    });
+  });
+});
diff --git a/plugins/techdocs-backend/src/search/DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory.ts b/plugins/techdocs-backend/src/search/DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory.ts
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..181f032b54
--- /dev/null
+++ b/plugins/techdocs-backend/src/search/DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,254 @@
+/*
+ * Copyright 2022 The Backstage Authors
+ *
+ * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+ * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+ * You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+
+import {
+  PluginEndpointDiscovery,
+  TokenManager,
+} from '@backstage/backend-common';
+import {
+  CatalogApi,
+  CatalogClient,
+  CATALOG_FILTER_EXISTS,
+} from '@backstage/catalog-client';
+import {
+  Entity,
+  parseEntityRef,
+  RELATION_OWNED_BY,
+  stringifyEntityRef,
+} from '@backstage/catalog-model';
+import { Config } from '@backstage/config';
+import { catalogEntityReadPermission } from '@backstage/plugin-catalog-common';
+import { DocumentCollatorFactory } from '@backstage/search-common';
+import { TechDocsDocument } from '@backstage/techdocs-common';
+import unescape from 'lodash/unescape';
+import fetch from 'node-fetch';
+import pLimit from 'p-limit';
+import { Readable } from 'stream';
+import { Logger } from 'winston';
+
+interface MkSearchIndexDoc {
+  title: string;
+  text: string;
+  location: string;
+}
+
+/**
+ * Options to configure the TechDocs collator factory
+ *
+ * @public
+ */
+export type TechDocsCollatorFactoryOptions = {
+  discovery: PluginEndpointDiscovery;
+  logger: Logger;
+  tokenManager: TokenManager;
+  locationTemplate?: string;
+  catalogClient?: CatalogApi;
+  parallelismLimit?: number;
+  legacyPathCasing?: boolean;
+};
+
+type EntityInfo = {
+  name: string;
+  namespace: string;
+  kind: string;
+};
+
+/**
+ * A search collator factory responsible for gathering and transforming
+ * TechDocs documents.
+ *
+ * @public
+ */
+export class DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory implements DocumentCollatorFactory {
+  public readonly type: string = 'techdocs';
+  public readonly visibilityPermission = catalogEntityReadPermission;
+
+  private discovery: PluginEndpointDiscovery;
+  private locationTemplate: string;
+  private readonly logger: Logger;
+  private readonly catalogClient: CatalogApi;
+  private readonly tokenManager: TokenManager;
+  private readonly parallelismLimit: number;
+  private readonly legacyPathCasing: boolean;
+
+  private constructor(options: TechDocsCollatorFactoryOptions) {
+    this.discovery = options.discovery;
+    this.locationTemplate =
+      options.locationTemplate || '/docs/:namespace/:kind/:name/:path';
+    this.logger = options.logger;
+    this.catalogClient =
+      options.catalogClient ||
+      new CatalogClient({ discoveryApi: options.discovery });
+    this.parallelismLimit = options.parallelismLimit ?? 10;
+    this.legacyPathCasing = options.legacyPathCasing ?? false;
+    this.tokenManager = options.tokenManager;
+  }
+
+  static fromConfig(config: Config, options: TechDocsCollatorFactoryOptions) {
+    const legacyPathCasing =
+      config.getOptionalBoolean(
+        'techdocs.legacyUseCaseSensitiveTripletPaths',
+      ) || false;
+    return new DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory({ ...options, legacyPathCasing });
+  }
+
+  async getCollator(): Promise<Readable> {
+    return Readable.from(this.execute());
+  }
+
+  private async *execute(): AsyncGenerator<TechDocsDocument, void, undefined> {
+    const limit = pLimit(this.parallelismLimit);
+    const techDocsBaseUrl = await this.discovery.getBaseUrl('techdocs');
+    const { token } = await this.tokenManager.getToken();
+    let entitiesRetrieved = 0;
+    let moreEntitiesToGet = true;
+
+    // Offset/limit pagination is used on the Catalog Client in order to
+    // limit (and allow some control over) memory used by the search backend
+    // at index-time. The batchSize is calculated as a factor of the given
+    // parallelism limit to simplify configuration.
+    const batchSize = this.parallelismLimit * 50;
+    while (moreEntitiesToGet) {
+      const entities = (
+        await this.catalogClient.getEntities(
+          {
+            filter: {
+              'metadata.annotations.backstage.io/techdocs-ref':
+                CATALOG_FILTER_EXISTS,
+            },
+            fields: [
+              'kind',
+              'namespace',
+              'metadata.annotations',
+              'metadata.name',
+              'metadata.title',
+              'metadata.namespace',
+              'spec.type',
+              'spec.lifecycle',
+              'relations',
+            ],
+            limit: batchSize,
+            offset: entitiesRetrieved,
+          },
+          { token },
+        )
+      ).items;
+
+      // Control looping through entity batches.
+      moreEntitiesToGet = entities.length === batchSize;
+      entitiesRetrieved += entities.length;
+
+      const docPromises = entities
+        .filter(it => it.metadata?.annotations?.['backstage.io/techdocs-ref'])
+        .map((entity: Entity) =>
+          limit(async (): Promise<TechDocsDocument[]> => {
+            const entityInfo =
+              DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory.handleEntityInfoCasing(
+                this.legacyPathCasing,
+                {
+                  kind: entity.kind,
+                  namespace: entity.metadata.namespace || 'default',
+                  name: entity.metadata.name,
+                },
+              );
+
+            try {
+              const searchIndexResponse = await fetch(
+                DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory.constructDocsIndexUrl(
+                  techDocsBaseUrl,
+                  entityInfo,
+                ),
+                {
+                  headers: {
+                    Authorization: `Bearer ${token}`,
+                  },
+                },
+              );
+              const searchIndex = await searchIndexResponse.json();
+
+              return searchIndex.docs.map((doc: MkSearchIndexDoc) => ({
+                title: unescape(doc.title),
+                text: unescape(doc.text || ''),
+                location: this.applyArgsToFormat(
+                  this.locationTemplate || '/docs/:namespace/:kind/:name/:path',
+                  {
+                    ...entityInfo,
+                    path: doc.location,
+                  },
+                ),
+                path: doc.location,
+                ...entityInfo,
+                entityTitle: entity.metadata.title,
+                componentType: entity.spec?.type?.toString() || 'other',
+                lifecycle: (entity.spec?.lifecycle as string) || '',
+                owner: getSimpleEntityOwnerString(entity),
+                authorization: {
+                  resourceRef: stringifyEntityRef(entity),
+                },
+              }));
+            } catch (e) {
+              this.logger.debug(
+                `Failed to retrieve tech docs search index for entity ${entityInfo.namespace}/${entityInfo.kind}/${entityInfo.name}`,
+                e,
+              );
+              return [];
+            }
+          }),
+        );
+      yield* (await Promise.all(docPromises)).flat();
+    }
+  }
+
+  private applyArgsToFormat(
+    format: string,
+    args: Record<string, string>,
+  ): string {
+    let formatted = format;
+    for (const [key, value] of Object.entries(args)) {
+      formatted = formatted.replace(`:${key}`, value);
+    }
+    return formatted;
+  }
+
+  private static constructDocsIndexUrl(
+    techDocsBaseUrl: string,
+    entityInfo: { kind: string; namespace: string; name: string },
+  ) {
+    return `${techDocsBaseUrl}/static/docs/${entityInfo.namespace}/${entityInfo.kind}/${entityInfo.name}/search/search_index.json`;
+  }
+
+  private static handleEntityInfoCasing(
+    legacyPaths: boolean,
+    entityInfo: EntityInfo,
+  ): EntityInfo {
+    return legacyPaths
+      ? entityInfo
+      : Object.entries(entityInfo).reduce((acc, [key, value]) => {
+          return { ...acc, [key]: value.toLocaleLowerCase('en-US') };
+        }, {} as EntityInfo);
+  }
+}
+
+function getSimpleEntityOwnerString(entity: Entity): string {
+  if (entity.relations) {
+    const owner = entity.relations.find(r => r.type === RELATION_OWNED_BY);
+    if (owner) {
+      const { name } = parseEntityRef(owner.targetRef);
+      return name;
+    }
+  }
+  return '';
+}
diff --git a/plugins/techdocs-backend/src/search/index.ts b/plugins/techdocs-backend/src/search/index.ts
index fbbd23b964..68e3b4edc7 100644
--- a/plugins/techdocs-backend/src/search/index.ts
+++ b/plugins/techdocs-backend/src/search/index.ts
@@ -13,6 +13,12 @@
  * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
  * limitations under the License.
  */
-export { DefaultTechDocsCollator } from './DefaultTechDocsCollator';
 
+export { DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory } from './DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory';
+export type { TechDocsCollatorFactoryOptions } from './DefaultTechDocsCollatorFactory';
+
+/**
+ * todo(backstage/techdocs-core): stop exporting these in a future release.
+ */
+export { DefaultTechDocsCollator } from './DefaultTechDocsCollator';
 export type { TechDocsCollatorOptions } from './DefaultTechDocsCollator';