Backstage is an open source framework for building Internal Developer Portals. If you're looking for out-of-the-box convenience with all the same flexibility, Cortex's Internal Developer Portal is where you should start.
Your engineers don't want to build integrations and plugins, and all UI work on Backstage requires front-end resources that know React. Cortex has 50+ integrations, OOTB scorecards, a full reporting module, initiatives, and alerting. Customize with the Cortex plugins framework, without worrying about maintenance.
Organizations often struggle with developer adoption of Backstage, which is not surprising because there's no reason for devs to log in. Cortex Developer Homepages outline clear actions for devs, and Initiatives enable short or long-term projects with deadlines and alerting.
Backstage only enables you to perform software checks manually via API, using "facts" or metadata in your catalog, assuming you spring for that extra plugin package at the cost of Cortex's entire platform. With Cortex, you can pull from all 50+ integrations to create any rule in any format for any Scorecard.
Build your own catalogs - typically takes 2-3 FTEs and 4-6 months to build
Pre-built catalog with auto discovery
Unlimited flexibility; but requires development resources to customize
Ability to catalog anything and customized based on your unique business needs
Backstage Search
Backstage requires manual dependency mapping: Define relationships for each node in a YAML file
New in 2024, improved relationship visualization to make it even easier to quickly trace domain hierarchies
community-based plugin network; YMMV
Plugins let you build apps that can be embedded in the Cortex UI and fed from any data source, including homegrown solutions
GitOps
REST API, Terraform, GitOps, CI/CD
Beta plugin
Simple role-based permission system with users + admins; with permissions to perform actions
Must build and maintain all of your own integrations
50+ integrations to pull data from across your tech stack, all accessible in one place. Check out all of our integrations
Must build and maintain your integrations
Eliminate manual updates that lead to stale ownership data. Cortex automatically syncs with your identity provider like Okta, GitHub Teams, and Active Directory to keep ownership information up to date.
Can build a homepage with a plugin
The Developer Homepage pulls all of your data into a single place so developers can quickly assess where to invest their time
Must manually search for ownership information.
Automatically surface the most vital information about your service health and metadata when an incident is triggered
No notifications in Teams or Slack, making it more likely for a developer to miss an important alert
Cortex will message service owners in Teams of Slack regarding any Scorecard improvements or if there are any action items for upcoming Initiatives
Backstage is a framework for building IDPs, with lots of flexibility and customization, but it requires dedicated resources to stand it up and maintain. Many organizations that try Backstage report 2-3 full time employees spending 6-9 months just trying to stand it up.
Cortex is an active internal developer portal that pulls data from across your ecosystem to drive standards of production readiness, operational maturity, security, or any other initiative you have. Cortex is better suited for large teams focused on fast-ramp and long-term scale.
