Softwr

Developer Tools · head to head

Backstage vs Luzmo

Backstage logo

Backstage

Developer Tools

Open source internal developer portal framework created and open sourced by Spotify

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Visit BackstageFull review
Luzmo logo

Luzmo

Business Intelligence

Embedded analytics for SaaS products, billed by monthly active dashboard users

From
€995/month
Free plan
No
Visit LuzmoFull review

The short version

  • Backstage is free; Luzmo starts at €995/mo.
  • Only Backstage lists software catalogue; only Luzmo lists multi-tenant row-level security.
  • Prices and features on this page were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Backstage and Luzmo actually diverge.

Attributes where Backstage and Luzmo differ
AttributeBackstageLuzmo
Starting priceFree€995/month
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feePer month by monthly active user count
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWeb, Self-hosted, LinuxWeb
CategoryDeveloper ToolsBusiness Intelligence

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Backstage

  • Software catalogue
  • Software templates
  • TechDocs
  • Plugin architecture
  • Kubernetes plugin
  • Search
  • Entity ownership model
  • Auth provider integrations

Only in Luzmo

  • Multi-tenant row-level security
  • Embeddable editor
  • Theming and white labelling
  • SDKs and APIs
  • Luzmo IQ
  • Scheduled exports

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Backstage

  • An engineering organisation past roughly a hundred services where nobody can reliably answer who owns a given service at two in the morningnot Luzmo
  • A platform team enforcing golden paths, so a new service is scaffolded with logging, CI and security defaults already wired innot Luzmo
  • A company consolidating scattered READMEs and Confluence pages into docs that live beside the code and cannot silently rot unnoticednot Luzmo
  • A regulated business that needs an auditable register of every running service, its owner and its data classificationnot Luzmo

Luzmo

  • A B2B SaaS product that needs customer-facing dashboards without hiring a front-end data visualisation teamnot Backstage
  • A vertical software vendor that wants to sell an analytics module as a paid add-onnot Backstage
  • A product where each customer must only see their own rows and the security boundary has to be provable to an auditornot Backstage
  • A team that wants end customers to build their own charts rather than filing feature requests for every new reportnot Backstage

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Backstage

  • Backstage is a framework rather than a product: there is no supported turnkey install, so getting to a usable portal means a TypeScript and React project your team owns, hosts and upgrades forever
  • Upstream releases move quickly and plugin APIs have broken across major versions, so a customised deployment accumulates upgrade debt and teams routinely fall months behind on versions they cannot cheaply catch up on
  • The catalogue is only as good as the YAML descriptors engineers remember to write; without enforcement the register drifts out of date, and a developer portal nobody trusts is abandoned faster than one that never existed
  • Community plugin quality varies sharply, with many unmaintained or pinned to old core versions, so the plugin that made the business case may be the one blocking your next upgrade
  • Spotify Portal, the packaged commercial route, publishes no price at all and is quoted as a custom annual subscription, so the only cost you can actually forecast up front is the self-hosted one, which is the option with the largest hidden staffing bill

Luzmo

  • Billing by monthly active users means commercial success is punished: getting every one of your customers into the dashboard weekly is exactly the outcome that pushes you into the next tier
  • The entry price of EUR 995 per month billed annually rules it out for early-stage products, so the realistic buyer already has meaningful revenue
  • It is built for embedding rather than internal analysis, so most customers still pay for a second BI tool for their own staff, doubling the analytics line item
  • The semantic modelling layer is lighter than a dedicated one such as dbt or Cube, so complex metric definitions often have to be pre-computed in the warehouse before Luzmo sees them
  • As a smaller European vendor it has less connector breadth and a smaller partner ecosystem than the US incumbents, and unusual data sources frequently need an intermediate warehouse hop

Pricing, plan by plan

Backstage

Free
  • Backstage (open source)Free
    • Apache 2.0 licence
    • Software catalogue, templates, TechDocs and search
    • Full plugin ecosystem
  • Spotify Portal for BackstageOn request
    • Packaged commercial distribution from Spotify
    • Spotify premium plugins including Soundcheck and Insights
    • Simplified setup and managed upgrade path

Luzmo

€995/month
  • Starter€995/mo
    • Embedded dashboards with white labelling
    • Custom charts
    • APIs and SDKs
  • Premium€2,495/mo
    • Everything in Starter
    • End-customer self-service dashboard building
    • Luzmo IQ conversational insights
  • EnterpriseOn request
    • Dedicated VPC option
    • Flexible hosting region
    • OIDC single sign-on

Which should you pick?

Choose Backstage if

  • You need software catalogue.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Self-hosted, Linux.
  • You also want software templates.
Backstage review

Choose Luzmo if

  • You need multi-tenant row-level security.
  • You also want embeddable editor.
Luzmo review

Questions people ask

Is Backstage or Luzmo better?
Neither clearly leads. Backstage starts at Free and Luzmo at €995/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Backstage or Luzmo?
Backstage has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Backstage and €995/month for Luzmo.
Does Backstage or Luzmo run on more platforms?
Backstage runs on Web, Self-hosted, Linux. Luzmo runs on Web.
Can I use Backstage for free?
Yes. Backstage has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Luzmo starts at €995/month.
What is Backstage best used for?
Backstage is most often used for an engineering organisation past roughly a hundred services where nobody can reliably answer who owns a given service at two in the morning, a platform team enforcing golden paths, so a new service is scaffolded with logging, ci and security defaults already wired in, a company consolidating scattered readmes and confluence pages into docs that live beside the code and cannot silently rot unnoticed, a regulated business that needs an auditable register of every running service, its owner and its data classification. Of those, an engineering organisation past roughly a hundred services where nobody can reliably answer who owns a given service at two in the morning and a platform team enforcing golden paths, so a new service is scaffolded with logging, ci and security defaults already wired in are not what Luzmo is typically brought in for.
What can Backstage do that Luzmo cannot?
Backstage covers Software catalogue, Software templates, TechDocs, Plugin architecture. Luzmo covers Multi-tenant row-level security, Embeddable editor, Theming and white labelling, SDKs and APIs.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Backstage: Is Backstage free?

The project is Apache 2.0 with no licence fee. The real cost is engineering time; teams commonly dedicate one to two engineers permanently to running it.

Luzmo: Is Luzmo the same as Cumul.io?

Yes. Cumul.io rebranded to Luzmo; it is the same company and product line.

Backstage: Do I need to write code to use it?

Yes. Configuring and extending a Backstage application is a TypeScript and React project. This is the single most common misjudgement buyers make.

Luzmo: How is it priced?

By monthly active users of your embedded dashboards, from EUR 995 per month on Starter billed annually.

Backstage: What is Spotify Portal for Backstage?

A commercial distribution from Spotify with premium plugins and support, generally available since October 2025 and sold as a quoted annual subscription with no published price.

Luzmo: Is there a free tier?

No, only a trial. There is no perpetual free plan.

Backstage: Who owns the project?

Spotify created and open sourced it; it is now a CNCF project, so the upstream roadmap is not solely Spotify controlled.

Luzmo: Can our customers build their own dashboards?

Yes, but the embeddable editor for end-customer self-service sits on the Premium tier.

Share

Related pages

More on Backstage

More on Luzmo

Keep looking

Other head to heads