Backstage vs Kratix
Backstage
backstage.ioKratix
kratix.ioSide by side
| Figure | Backstage | Kratix |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 4 |
| Spec score · Internal Developer Portals | 8.6 (#2) | 7.5 (#19) |
| Spec score · Internal Developer Platforms | 8.6 (#3) | 7.5 (#16) |
| Spec score · Platform Engineering Software | 8.6 (#5) | 7.6 (#22) |
| Deployment | The standalone installation guide creates a locally running app with an in-memory SQLite database and demo content, and says this setup is not production-ready. | The installation guide covers Azure Kubernetes Service, Amazon EKS, Google Kubernetes Engine, Red Hat OpenShift, and other Kubernetes setups. |
| Integrations | Integrations let Backstage read or publish data using providers such as GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, LDAP, and cloud providers. | The enterprise offering lists supported integrations for Backstage, Cortex, Port, MCP, and Terraform Enterprise and HCP Terraform. |
| Purpose | Backstage is an open-source framework for creating and deploying developer portals, originally created at Spotify. | Kratix is an open-source framework for building internal developer platforms and orchestrating platform capabilities. |
| Security | The official threat model outlines security considerations for operators, developers, and security researchers, and points to the project’s security policy for vulnerability reporting. | Enterprise plans include secure base images, software bills of materials, and nightly security scans. |
| Support | The project lists Discord, FAQs, and community resources for support and discussion. | SKE support is available from 9:00 to 17:00 UK time on business days, with incident response targets described in its support policy. |
Plans
Kratix
- Kratix Open SourceFree
- Syntasso IntegratorPriced on request
- Syntasso Kratix Agentic (SKA)Priced on request
- Syntasso Kratix Enterprise (SKE)Priced on request
In their own words
Backstage
Backstage is a free, open-source framework for building and deploying developer portals. Its software catalog records ownership and metadata for services, websites, libraries and data pipelines, for teams managing a small set of services or company catalogs of thousands. Software Templates can fill code skeletons with variables and publish generated projects to destinations such as GitHub or GitLab. TechDocs keeps documentation in a docs-like-code workflow close to code. Integrations can read or publish data through GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, LDAP and cloud providers. Teams can extend a portal with existing open-source plugins or build their own; Backstage Search can index sources such as TechDocs, Confluence and Stack Overflow. Its Kubernetes feature aggregates a service’s deployments through the Kubernetes API. Backstage is self-hosted. The standalone installation guide creates a local demo with an in-memory SQLite database and says this setup is not production-ready. It lists minimum requirements of 20 GB disk and 6 GB memory, with more disk needed as modules and plugins are added. Its threat model describes only rudimentary denial-of-service protection and recommends a protected deployment environment.
Kratix
Kratix is an open-source framework for building internal developer platforms and coordinating platform capabilities. Its Promises define self-service APIs, embed workflows, and manage resources across a fleet. Teams can encode organisation and department policy or governance in reusable Promises and Workflows, then operate platform resources across clusters as one automated fleet. The maker describes access through portals, APIs, command-line tools, GitOps workflows, MCPs, automation, and AI agents. Kratix is available through an API and as self-hosted software, with installation guidance for Azure Kubernetes Service, Amazon EKS, Google Kubernetes Engine, Red Hat OpenShift, and other Kubernetes environments. The free Kratix Open Source plan costs nothing and includes the core, Promise-writing CLI, Go and Python SDKs, revisions and upgrades, metrics and observability endpoint, Marketplace, and Community Slack support. Paid SKA, SKE, and Integrator plans are billed Contact Us.