Developer Tools · head to head
Cortex vs Spacelift
Cortex
Developer Tools
Internal developer portal that scores service ownership and maturity rather than just cataloguing services
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
Spacelift
Developer Tools
Infrastructure-as-code orchestration for Terraform, OpenTofu, Pulumi and Kubernetes
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Only Spacelift has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- Each has a real cost: 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.; Spacelift users are unlimited and private workers are metered, so deployment concurrency rather than headcount drives the bill, which inverts how most engineering budgets are built and is easy to under-forecast.
- They diverge on capability: Cortex covers Service catalogue, Spacelift covers Multi-tool orchestration.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Cortex and Spacelift actually diverge.
Identical on both: 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 Cortex
- Service catalogue
- Scorecards
- Initiatives
- Self-service templates
- Query language
- Eng intelligence
- Integrations layer
- On-call and ownership mapping
Only in Spacelift
- Multi-tool orchestration
- Policy as code
- Private workers
- Spaces
- Blueprints
- Drift detection
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 Spacelift
- An organisation where ownership of production services is genuinely unknown after reorganisations or acquisitionsnot Spacelift
- Enforcing production readiness standards on new services at creation time rather than at incident reviewnot Spacelift
- Replacing a self-hosted Backstage that is consuming a full-time engineer or two just to stay upgradednot Spacelift
Spacelift
- Platform teams running infrastructure changes through approval gates rather than through application CInot Cortex
- Organisations standardising Terraform and OpenTofu across many teams with policy enforcementnot Cortex
- Estates needing private runners so cloud credentials never leave the networknot Cortex
- Teams wanting drift detection and reconciliation rather than plan-time checks alonenot 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.
Spacelift
- Users are unlimited and private workers are metered, so deployment concurrency rather than headcount drives the bill, which inverts how most engineering budgets are built and is easy to under-forecast.
- There is no affordable paid entry point. The free tier stops at two users and the next tier is a five-figure commitment with nothing in between.
- Three of the five tiers are quote-only, so a shortlist cannot be costed without entering a sales process with each vendor on it.
- The self-hosted build lags the hosted one, has no public worker pool and lacks the Azure and Google Cloud integrations available in the SaaS product, with OIDC federation offered as the workaround.
- Stacks, Rego policies, Blueprints, Spaces and Spacelift-managed state are proprietary constructs, so leaving means rebuilding the orchestration layer rather than pointing it at a different runner.
Pricing, plan by plan
Cortex
On request- Cortex$undefined/year
- Service catalogue and ownership mapping
- Scorecards and initiatives
- Self-service templates
Spacelift
Free- FreeFree
- Two users
- Public workers only
- No private workers
- Starter Plus$undefined/year
- Unlimited users
- Two public workers
- One to two private workers
- Business$undefined/year
- Unlimited users
- Three private workers
- Quoted
- Enterprise$undefined/year
- Unlimited users
- Five to thirty private workers
- Self-hosted option
Which should you pick?
Choose Cortex if
- You need service catalogue.
- You work on Web, API.
- You also want scorecards.
Choose Spacelift if
- You need multi-tool orchestration.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, Self-hosted, Cloud.
- You also want policy as code.
Questions people ask
- Is Cortex or Spacelift better?
- Neither clearly leads. Cortex starts at On request and Spacelift at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Cortex or Spacelift?
- Spacelift has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Cortex and Free for Spacelift.
- Does Cortex or Spacelift run on more platforms?
- Cortex runs on Web, API. Spacelift runs on Web, Self-hosted, Cloud.
- Can I use Spacelift for free?
- Yes. Spacelift has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Cortex starts at On request.
- 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 Spacelift is typically brought in for.
- What can Cortex do that Spacelift cannot?
- Cortex covers Service catalogue, Scorecards, Initiatives, Self-service templates. Spacelift covers Multi-tool orchestration, Policy as code, Private workers, Spaces.
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.
Spacelift: How is Spacelift priced?
By tier and by private worker count rather than per user. Users are unlimited on every paid plan. The published figure on the pricing page carries no period label, and the FAQ describes the tier as an annual subscription, so confirm the period in writing.
Cortex: Is pricing published?
No. Cortex requires a sales conversation and prepares a custom proposal.
Spacelift: Does it support OpenTofu?
Yes, and Spacelift sponsors the OpenTofu project, which is a substantive hedge for anyone avoiding Terraform under the Business Source Licence.
Cortex: Can it self-host?
It is offered as a hosted product; on-premise arrangements are handled through sales rather than published.
Spacelift: Is there a self-hosted version?
Yes, described as carrying Enterprise functionality, but it is priced on request and lags the hosted product on cloud integrations.
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.
Spacelift: Why not just use the CI system we already have?
That is the real comparison. General purpose CI handles state, drift, approval gates and concurrency control for infrastructure poorly, and whether that is worth a five-figure floor depends on how much infrastructure change your organisation actually ships.
Spacelift: What happens to our pipelines if we leave?
They do not port. Rego policies, Blueprints, Spaces and managed state are Spacelift constructs and the orchestration has to be rebuilt elsewhere.
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