Developer Tools · pricing
Backstage pricing
Backstage publishes 2 tiers. Below is each one, what it adds over the tier beneath it, and where the ladder stops being worth climbing for most people.
As of 31 August 2026, Backstage pricing is free across 2 published tiers. Figures are the vendor's list prices as recorded on this page's last check; the vendor's site is the final word.
- Entry price
- Free
- Model
- Open source, no licence fee
- Tiers
- 2
- Free tier
- Yes
Backstage plans, side by side
Every published tier in ascending order of price, with the number of features each one lists. An absence here means the record does not itemise it, not that the tier lacks it.
| Plan | Price | Features listed | Step up from the tier below |
|---|---|---|---|
| Backstage (open source) | Free | 5 | Entry tier |
| Spotify Portal for Backstage | On request | 5 | Priced on request |
What each tier adds
The set difference between each tier's feature list and the one beneath it. Where a tier lists nothing new, the vendor has either stopped repeating the inherited list or the tier raises limits rather than adding capability, the record does not distinguish the two, so this page does not either.
Backstage (open source)
FreeThe entry tier. It covers apache 2.0 licence, software catalogue, templates, techdocs and search, full plugin ecosystem, self-hosted only; you provide hosting, upgrades and engineering time, community support.
Spotify Portal for Backstage
On requestOver Backstage (open source), this tier adds:
- Packaged commercial distribution from Spotify
- Spotify premium plugins including Soundcheck and Insights
- Simplified setup and managed upgrade path
- Vendor support
- Annual subscription flexed to usage; no public list price
Where Backstage stops being free
Backstage (open source), Free
- Apache 2.0 licence
- Software catalogue, templates, TechDocs and search
- Full plugin ecosystem
- Self-hosted only; you provide hosting, upgrades and engineering time
- Community support
No paid tier on record
Backstage lists a free tier and no priced tier above it in the record we hold.
What the product covers
The full Backstage feature record, grouped as the catalogue groups it. This is the product as a whole; the record does not map every feature onto a specific tier.
Other
- Software catalogue
- Software templates
- TechDocs
- Plugin architecture
- Kubernetes plugin
- Search
- Entity ownership model
- Auth provider integrations
People bring Backstage in 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. If that is not the job you are buying for, the alternatives to Backstage are worth a look before you commit to a tier.
How that compares in Developer Tools
Too few developer tools tools in this directory publish a starting price to quote a meaningful median, so the table below is a like-for-like list rather than a ranking.
| Tool | Entry price | Model | Rated | Head to head |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Backstage (this page) | Free | Open source, no licence fee | - | |
| Tilt | Free | Open source, no licence fee | - | vs Backstage |
| Hookdeck | Free, then $39/month | Per month by delivered event count | - | vs Backstage |
| Jitsu | Free, then $99/month | Per month by event volume | - | vs Backstage |
| Ona (formerly Gitpod) | Free, then $20/month | Per month by compute unit | - | vs Backstage |
| Restate | Free, then $300/month | Per month by durable action count | - | vs Backstage |
| Cloud Native Buildpacks | Free | Open source, no licence fee | - | vs Backstage |
Ratings are aggregated from third-party sources and imported with each catalogue entry, they are not reviews hosted on Softwr. How each figure is used is set out on the Backstage badges page.
Before you pay for Backstage
Three things this page cannot tell you, and all three change the bill. The record carries a price and a billing period but not the unit - per-seat and flat-rate pricing are indistinguishable in this data, so a five-person team may be looking at five times the figure above. It carries no annual rate, so any discount for paying yearly is not something this page can quote. And it carries no trial length.
What it can tell you is the shape of the ladder: 2 tiers between Free and On request, with the jump itemised above. Because there is a free tier, the cheapest way to answer the rest is to use it before paying anything.
Backstage runs on web, self-hosted, linux, docker, kubernetes, and is published by Cloud Native Computing Foundation, project created by Spotify of Stockholm, Sweden and San Francisco, California, United States. The full record is on the Backstage review, and the rest of the category is under best developer tools tools.
Backstage pricing questions
- How much does Backstage cost?
- Backstage publishes 2 tiers, from Free for Backstage (open source) up to On request for Spotify Portal for Backstage. The entry tier costs nothing.
- Does Backstage have a free plan?
- Yes. The Backstage (open source) tier costs nothing and covers apache 2.0 licence, software catalogue, templates, techdocs and search, full plugin ecosystem.
- What is the difference between Backstage (open source) and Spotify Portal for Backstage on Backstage?
- Spotify Portal for Backstage costs On request against Free, and adds packaged commercial distribution from spotify, spotify premium plugins including soundcheck and insights, simplified setup and managed upgrade path, vendor support.
- Which developer tools tools can I use without paying?
- 8 of the 8 developer tools tools listed alongside Backstage have a free tier: Tilt, Hookdeck, Jitsu, Ona (formerly Gitpod), Restate.
- What am I actually paying for with Backstage?
- The record lists 8 features across 1 area: other. In practice it is brought in 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.
- Does Backstage charge per user?
- The record carries a price and a billing period for each of its 2 tiers, but not the unit that price is charged in. Per-seat and flat-rate billing look identical in this data, so check the vendor's page before budgeting for a team.
- Are these Backstage prices current?
- They are what the catalogue entry holds, refreshed when the entry is. Vendors change pricing without notice and nobody at Softwr re-verifies each tier by hand, so treat this as a structured summary and the vendor's own pricing page as the authority.
- What should I compare Backstage against before paying?
- The closest developer tools tools in this directory are Tilt, Hookdeck, Jitsu, Ona (formerly Gitpod). Each has a side-by-side comparison with Backstage covering price, platforms and features.