Backstage vs Cortex

Backstage and Cortex are both listed under DevOps in the DevPages directory. This page puts the details we hold for each of them side by side.

It does not score them and does not pick a winner. Fields the catalog has no value for say “Not recorded” rather than being filled in with a guess.

Backstage, Cortex compared field by field. Values are taken from the DevPages catalog; fields we hold no value for read “Not recorded”.
	Backstage	Cortex
Category	DevOps	DevOps
Pricing model	Open Source	Paid
Open source	Yes	Not recorded
GitHub stars	34.8K	Not tracked
Key features	Service Catalog for managing all software components Software Templates for standardized project creation TechDocs for documentation management Kubernetes integration for deployment tracking Plugin ecosystem for extensibility	Service dependency mapping Engineering metrics Score cards and reporting Architecture validation Service ownership
Use cases	Building internal developer portals Managing microservices architecture Standardizing software development practices Centralizing technical documentation	Microservices management Engineering productivity tracking Architecture governance Service reliability improvement
Integrations	GitHub GitLab Kubernetes Jenkins CircleCI Grafana	GitHub GitLab Jenkins CircleCI Datadog
Tags	developer-portal microservices service-catalog documentation ci-cd kubernetes spotify platform-engineering internal-tools self-service	service-catalog engineering-metrics microservices analytics dependency-mapping architecture service-ownership devops-intelligence
Links	Website (opens in a new tab) GitHub (opens in a new tab) Docs (opens in a new tab)	Website (opens in a new tab)

What each one is

Backstage

An open platform for building developer portals

Backstage is an open-source developer portal platform created by Spotify that helps organizations streamline their development infrastructure. It provides a centralized platform where developers can easily create, manage, and discover all their organization's software components, from microservices to documentation.

Full Backstage listing

Cortex

Engineering Intelligence and Service Catalog Platform

Cortex provides engineering teams with insights and intelligence about their services, dependencies, and development practices. It helps organizations understand their microservices architecture, track service health, and drive architectural decisions.

Full Cortex listing

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