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Developer Tools · head to head

Backstage vs Eclipse Mosquitto

Backstage logo

Backstage

Developer Tools

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Eclipse Mosquitto logo

Eclipse Mosquitto

Networking

Small, EPL-licensed MQTT broker that runs on hardware other brokers cannot

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: 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.; Eclipse Mosquitto there is no clustering: Mosquitto is a single process, so high availability means building your own failover and accepting session loss on switchover.
  • They diverge on capability: Backstage covers Software catalogue, Eclipse Mosquitto covers MQTT 5.0 support.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Backstage and Eclipse Mosquitto actually diverge.

Attributes where Backstage and Eclipse Mosquitto differ
AttributeBackstageEclipse Mosquitto
PlatformsWeb, Self-hosted, Linux, Docker, KubernetesLinux, Windows, macOS, Docker
CategoryDeveloper ToolsNetworking

Identical on both: starting price (Free), pricing model (Open source, no licence fee), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

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 Eclipse Mosquitto

  • MQTT 5.0 support
  • Very small footprint
  • Bridging
  • WebSockets listener
  • Command line clients
  • Dynamic security plugin

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 Eclipse Mosquitto
  • A platform team enforcing golden paths, so a new service is scaffolded with logging, CI and security defaults already wired innot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • A company consolidating scattered READMEs and Confluence pages into docs that live beside the code and cannot silently rot unnoticednot Eclipse Mosquitto
  • A regulated business that needs an auditable register of every running service, its owner and its data classificationnot Eclipse Mosquitto

Eclipse Mosquitto

  • A home or building automation stack where the broker must run on the same small computer as everything elsenot Backstage
  • An industrial gateway that buffers local telemetry and bridges selected topics to a cloud brokernot Backstage
  • Local development and testing of MQTT clients without provisioning a cloud IoT servicenot Backstage
  • An air-gapped deployment where a broker with no licence server and no phone-home behaviour is a requirementnot 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.

Eclipse Mosquitto

  • There is no clustering: Mosquitto is a single process, so high availability means building your own failover and accepting session loss on switchover.
  • Persistence is a local file rather than a replicated store, so a disk failure or an unclean shutdown can lose retained messages and queued QoS traffic.
  • Practical capacity is a few thousand concurrent clients on typical hardware, so a growing device fleet eventually forces a migration to a clustered broker.
  • The Eclipse Public Licence is weak copyleft rather than permissive, which some legal teams treat as a blocker when embedding the broker in a shipped commercial product.
  • There is no commercial support to buy from the project, so production incidents rely on community mailing lists or on paying a third party who happens to know the codebase.

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 Backstage$undefined/year
    • Packaged commercial distribution from Spotify
    • Spotify premium plugins including Soundcheck and Insights
    • Simplified setup and managed upgrade path

Eclipse Mosquitto

Free
  • Eclipse MosquittoFree
    • Eclipse Public License 2.0 with Eclipse Distribution Licence
    • MQTT 5.0, 3.1.1 and 3.1
    • No client or message limits beyond your hardware

Which should you pick?

Choose Backstage if

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

Choose Eclipse Mosquitto if

  • You need mqtt 5.0 support.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Windows, macOS, Docker.
  • You also want very small footprint.
Eclipse Mosquitto review

Questions people ask

Is Backstage or Eclipse Mosquitto better?
Neither clearly leads. Backstage starts at Free and Eclipse Mosquitto at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Backstage or Eclipse Mosquitto?
Backstage starts at Free and Eclipse Mosquitto at Free.
Does Backstage or Eclipse Mosquitto run on more platforms?
Backstage runs on Web, Self-hosted, Linux, Docker, Kubernetes. Eclipse Mosquitto runs on Linux, Windows, macOS, Docker.
Can I use Backstage for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
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 Eclipse Mosquitto is typically brought in for.
What can Backstage do that Eclipse Mosquitto cannot?
Backstage covers Software catalogue, Software templates, TechDocs, Plugin architecture. Eclipse Mosquitto covers MQTT 5.0 support, Very small footprint, Bridging, WebSockets listener.

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.

Eclipse Mosquitto: Can Mosquitto be clustered?

No. It is a single process. High availability requires an external failover arrangement you build yourself.

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.

Eclipse Mosquitto: What licence is it?

Eclipse Public License 2.0 alongside the Eclipse Distribution License, a weak copyleft rather than a permissive licence.

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.

Eclipse Mosquitto: How many clients can it handle?

A few thousand concurrent connections on ordinary hardware; beyond that, use a clustered broker.

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.

Eclipse Mosquitto: Does it support MQTT 5?

Yes, along with 3.1.1 and 3.1.

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