Softwr

Developer Tools · head to head

Backstage vs Soketi

Backstage logo

Backstage

Developer Tools

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Soketi logo

Soketi

Developer Tools

Self-hosted, Pusher-compatible WebSockets server with a stalled maintenance record

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.; Soketi maintenance has effectively stalled: the maintainer has said time is severely limited, releases are infrequent, and the community has been discussing whether the project is abandoned, which means security fixes may not arrive.
  • They diverge on capability: Backstage covers Software catalogue, Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Backstage and Soketi actually diverge.

Attributes where Backstage and Soketi differ
AttributeBackstageSoketi
PlatformsWeb, Self-hosted, Linux, Docker, KubernetesLinux, macOS, Windows

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

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 Soketi

  • Pusher protocol compatibility
  • Presence and private channels
  • Horizontal scaling
  • App management backends
  • Webhooks
  • Prometheus metrics

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

Soketi

  • A Laravel application that already uses Echo and wants to stop paying a hosted realtime providernot Backstage
  • Realtime notifications or presence indicators where data must not leave your own infrastructure for compliance reasonsnot Backstage
  • A local or CI environment that needs a Pusher-compatible server without hitting a paid accountnot Backstage
  • A high-connection-count application where hosted per-connection pricing has become the largest line in the infrastructure billnot 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.

Soketi

  • Maintenance has effectively stalled: the maintainer has said time is severely limited, releases are infrequent, and the community has been discussing whether the project is abandoned, which means security fixes may not arrive.
  • Dependency drift on Node and uWebSockets.js will eventually force you to fork or migrate, and that cost is unbudgeted at the point you adopt it.
  • There is no commercial support to buy, so a production incident at three in the morning is entirely your problem with no escalation path.
  • Scaling beyond a single node needs Redis and careful configuration, and getting presence channels correct across nodes is a genuine source of subtle bugs.
  • It implements the Pusher protocol rather than tracking it, so any protocol feature Pusher adds later will not appear, and the compatibility guarantee slowly decays.

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

Soketi

Free
  • SoketiFree
    • MIT licensed
    • Unlimited connections subject to your own hardware
    • No vendor billing

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 Soketi if

  • You need pusher protocol compatibility.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows.
  • You also want presence and private channels.
Soketi review

Questions people ask

Is Backstage or Soketi better?
Neither clearly leads. Backstage starts at Free and Soketi at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Backstage or Soketi?
Backstage starts at Free and Soketi at Free.
Does Backstage or Soketi run on more platforms?
Backstage runs on Web, Self-hosted, Linux, Docker, Kubernetes. Soketi runs on Linux, macOS, Windows.
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 Soketi is typically brought in for.
What can Backstage do that Soketi cannot?
Backstage covers Software catalogue, Software templates, TechDocs, Plugin architecture. Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility, Presence and private channels, Horizontal scaling, App management backends.

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.

Soketi: Is Soketi still maintained?

Barely. The maintainer has stated that available time is very limited and releases have been sparse; treat it as community-maintained.

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.

Soketi: Do I need to change my client code?

No. Pusher client SDKs and Laravel Echo work by changing the host, port and credentials.

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.

Soketi: What does it cost?

Nothing in licence fees. It is MIT licensed; you pay for the server it runs on.

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.

Soketi: What are people moving to?

Laravel Reverb for Laravel applications, and Sockudo, a Rust reimplementation, for others.

Share

Related pages

More on Backstage

More on Soketi

Keep looking

Other head to heads