Softwr

Developer Tools · head to head

Cortex vs Luzmo

Cortex logo

Cortex

Developer Tools

Internal developer portal that scores service ownership and maturity rather than just cataloguing services

From
On request
Free plan
No
Visit CortexFull 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

  • Luzmo starts at €995/mo; Cortex prices on request.
  • Only Cortex lists service 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 Cortex and Luzmo actually diverge.

Attributes where Cortex and Luzmo differ
AttributeCortexLuzmo
Starting priceOn request€995/month
Pricing modelQuotePer month by monthly active user count
PlatformsWeb, APIWeb
CategoryDeveloper ToolsBusiness Intelligence

Identical on both: free tier (No).

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 Cortex

  • Service catalogue
  • Scorecards
  • Initiatives
  • Self-service templates
  • Query language
  • Eng intelligence
  • Integrations layer
  • On-call and ownership mapping

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.

Cortex

  • A platform team that needs to prove to leadership how far a Kubernetes or framework migration has actually progressed across hundreds of servicesnot Luzmo
  • An organisation where ownership of production services is genuinely unknown after reorganisations or acquisitionsnot Luzmo
  • Enforcing production readiness standards on new services at creation time rather than at incident reviewnot Luzmo
  • Replacing a self-hosted Backstage that is consuming a full-time engineer or two just to stay upgradednot Luzmo

Luzmo

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

Where each one falls short

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

Cortex

  • Pricing is quote only, so a platform team cannot build a business case or compare against the true cost of self-hosted Backstage without entering a sales cycle first
  • The catalogue is only as accurate as the metadata you supply, so an organisation with inconsistent repository conventions spends its first quarter cleaning data before any scorecard means anything
  • Scorecards create political friction: publishing a per-team grade turns an engineering standard into a performance metric, and teams will game the rules rather than fix the underlying issue
  • It is closed source and hosted, so organisations with strict data residency or air-gap requirements have limited options compared with running Backstage themselves
  • Value scales with organisation size, so a company with fifty engineers and thirty services will find the catalogue tells them nothing they did not already know while still paying an enterprise contract

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

Cortex

On request
  • CortexOn request
    • Service catalogue and ownership mapping
    • Scorecards and initiatives
    • Self-service templates

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 Cortex if

  • You need service catalogue.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want scorecards.
Cortex review

Choose Luzmo if

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

Questions people ask

Is Cortex or Luzmo better?
Neither clearly leads. Cortex starts at On request and Luzmo at €995/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Cortex or Luzmo?
Cortex starts at On request and Luzmo at €995/month.
Does Cortex or Luzmo run on more platforms?
Cortex runs on Web, API. Luzmo runs on Web.
What is Cortex best used for?
Cortex is most often used for a platform team that needs to prove to leadership how far a kubernetes or framework migration has actually progressed across hundreds of services, an organisation where ownership of production services is genuinely unknown after reorganisations or acquisitions, enforcing production readiness standards on new services at creation time rather than at incident review, replacing a self-hosted backstage that is consuming a full-time engineer or two just to stay upgraded. Of those, a platform team that needs to prove to leadership how far a kubernetes or framework migration has actually progressed across hundreds of services and an organisation where ownership of production services is genuinely unknown after reorganisations or acquisitions are not what Luzmo is typically brought in for.
What can Cortex do that Luzmo cannot?
Cortex covers Service catalogue, Scorecards, Initiatives, Self-service templates. Luzmo covers Multi-tenant row-level security, Embeddable editor, Theming and white labelling, SDKs and APIs.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Cortex: How is Cortex different from Backstage?

Backstage is an open source framework you build and staff. Cortex is a hosted product with scorecards and initiatives out of the box and no platform team required to keep it running.

Luzmo: Is Luzmo the same as Cumul.io?

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

Cortex: Is pricing published?

No. Cortex requires a sales conversation and prepares a custom proposal.

Luzmo: How is it priced?

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

Cortex: Can it self-host?

It is offered as a hosted product; on-premise arrangements are handled through sales rather than published.

Luzmo: Is there a free tier?

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

Cortex: What is the main adoption risk?

Bad or missing service metadata. The catalogue and every scorecard on top of it inherit whatever quality your repositories already have.

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 Cortex

More on Luzmo

Keep looking

Other head to heads