Skip building the portal. Get one that executes.
Backstage is the leading open-source developer portal — a superb catalog and front door. But it visualizes and links out; the provisioning, deploying, and operating happen in tools behind it that you wire up and maintain. Atmosly is an IDP that actually executes.
- ✓ Works out of the box
- ✓ Read-only to start
- ✓ No self-host upgrades
Two good tools, built for different scopes
Both work with Kubernetes. The real question isn't whose feature is better — it's how much of the lifecycle you want one product to own.
Backstage is the leading open-source developer portal — Spotify's framework for a software catalog, scaffolder templates, TechDocs, and a rich plugin ecosystem.
It is a framework you staff a team to build and run: you write plugins and integrate every backend. And it's a portal — it surfaces and links to your tools; it doesn't provision, deploy, or remediate itself.
- A framework you build & maintain
- Visualizes & links — doesn't execute
- No AI SRE or root-cause analysis
- No built-in security posture or cost
Atmosly is one unified Kubernetes platform. Code flows through visual CI/CD and GitOps; the AI SRE agent watches what's running and proposes ranked fixes; the security engine scans posture continuously; and cost intelligence shows where the money goes.
It's fully managed and agent-based — no self-hosted upgrades to chase. And the SquareOps services team can implement and run it for you.
- AI SRE: root cause + ranked fix PRs
- Continuous CIS / PCI / SOC 2 posture
- Built-in cost intelligence & FinOps
- Fully managed — zero upgrade toil
Backstage shows the platform. Atmosly is the platform.
Instead of a catalog that points at other tools, Atmosly provisions, deploys, secures, and operates Kubernetes directly — no portal to build and run.
An AI SRE for what's running
When a pod OOMKills or a service crash-loops, Atmosly infers the actual root cause and opens the PR that fixes it — with a full audit trail. Read-only by default, every action reversible.
- Root cause in under a minute, fix proposed
- Read-only by default — every action reversible
- No runbooks to write, no rotation to staff
Continuous posture, not a build-time scan
Always-on scanning against CIS, PCI DSS, SOC 2, and NSA hardening, with audit-ready evidence on demand — watching the live cluster for drift, not just images at build time.
- CIS · PCI · SOC 2 · NSA frameworks built in
- Drift caught on the running cluster
- Audit-ready evidence exported on demand
Cost you can see, leaks closed automatically
Per-namespace and per-workload cost, right-sizing from real usage, and waste detection built in — reconciled to your bill, with guardrails that scale non-prod down on a schedule.
- Cost by service & namespace, reconciled to the bill
- Right-sizing from real usage, not guesswork
- Guardrails scale non-prod down on a schedule
Backstage vs Atmosly, capability by capability
The capabilities below are the ones Atmosly brings to one platform. We've kept Backstage's genuine wins in the table too.
Backstage's strengths are real for the job it's built for. Atmosly's case is scope and managed operations across the whole loop.
Which one is right for your team?
Here's how to decide based on scope and who you want running the platform.
- You want a fully custom developer portal
- You have a platform team to build & run it
- A unified catalog across many tools is the goal
- You prefer assembling best-of-breed backends
- Open-source and bespoke is a requirement
- You want delivery plus AI SRE, security & cost in one loop
- You'd rather not spend engineer-weeks self-hosting a platform
- Continuous compliance posture matters, not just scans
- You want auto root-cause and fix PRs for incidents
- You'd like a partner (SquareOps) to implement and run it
The bottom line: If you want a fully custom developer portal and have a platform team to build and run it, Backstage is the standard. If you want a platform that actually provisions, deploys, and operates — without building a portal first — that's Atmosly.
From Backstage to Atmosly in an afternoon
No big-bang migration. You connect read-only, see value first, and adopt the rest of the loop at your own pace — keeping the GitOps and Helm you already run.
Connect read-only
Import your existing EKS, GKE, or AKS cluster — public or private — in minutes. Nothing changes; Atmosly just starts observing.
Bring what you run
Point Atmosly at your existing clusters, Git repos, and Helm releases. It's standard Kubernetes underneath — nothing to recreate.
Turn on the loop
Switch on visual CI/CD, the AI SRE agent, continuous security, and cost intelligence as you're ready — one capability at a time.
Hand off the toil
Atmosly is fully managed — no self-host upgrades to chase. SquareOps can run day-2 operations for you if you'd like.
What teams comparing Backstage ask
Is Atmosly a developer portal like Backstage?
Do we still build and maintain plugins?
Can Atmosly show a catalog and golden paths?
What's the effort difference?
How hard is it to migrate from Backstage?
Which clouds and clusters does Atmosly support?
Will Atmosly lock us in?
Do we host Atmosly, or is it managed?
Keep what works. Close the loop.
Connect a cluster read-only and watch your deploys, incidents, posture, and spend show up in one place — in minutes. Free, no sales call.