Understanding Platform Engineering and the Need for Internal Platforms
Platform engineering has emerged as one of the top strategic technology trends for 2024, ranking fourth in Gartner’s predictions. According to Gartner, by 2025, 95% of enterprises will fail to scale DevOps initiatives without adopting shared self-service platform approaches. In this context, internal platforms are no longer just a trend but a necessity. Two solutions that cater to this growing demand are meshcloud’s meshStack and Spotify’s Backstage. Both offer unique capabilities to enable organizations managing complex platform engineering needs, but their approaches and target audiences differ significantly.
What is Platform Engineering?
Before we compare the two products, let’s first define platform engineering. Platform engineering creates internal platforms that streamline software development and operational workflows, boosting developer productivity, efficiency, and autonomy. Teams achieve this by using shared services, self-service infrastructure, and automation, which support various applications.
Portal vs. Platform: What is the Difference?
To clarify two terms that are sometimes used interchangeably internal developer portal and internal developer platform—we’d like to offer a brief explanation. When we refer to an internal developer platform, we mean the comprehensive management and automation of the entire infrastructure, providing tools for platform orchestration and enabling efficient deployment and operations. In contrast, an internal developer portal acts as the user-facing interface, offering developers a streamlined way to interact with the underlying systems without directly managing infrastructure complexities. Essentially, a portal typically operates on top of and is supported by a platform.
meshStack: Internal Developer Platform for Enterprises
meshStack is designed to support enterprise IT teams by providing a comprehensive internal platform. meshStack’s Developer Portal helps application teams be productive by improving the developer experience (DevX). Offered by meshcloud, meshStack has gained the trust of large organizations like EnBW, Volkswagen, and Commerzbank.
Platform Teams can use meshStack to offer secure platform services for application teams while ensuring compliance with regulatory standards. They can also monitor and control platform costs across all teams from a central dashboard, preventing budget overruns. Additionally, the platform simplifies identity management by automatically assigning the correct access permissions for each team, ensuring that only authorized users can access sensitive resources.
- Target Audience: Enterprise IT Teams and Internal Platform Engineering Teams
- Key Features:
- Integrated platform for platform infrastructure management.
- Cost Management, IAM (Identity and Access Management), and Compliance are built-in.
- Shared Responsibility Model: Enterprise collaboration between IT and application teams is a core feature, ensuring clear ownership and accountability.
- Golden Paths: meshStack offers modular landing zones, which are pre-configured, compliant platform services that teams can use when setting up new projects.
- Used by major organizations such as Volkswagen and METRO.digital.
meshStack focuses on delivering a holistic approach to platform management, making it ideal for organizations with diverse application teams and complex compliance requirements.
Spotify Backstage: Open-Source Developer Portal
Backstage, initiated by Spotify and maintained by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), is an open-source framework designed to streamline developer experiences. Backstage helps organizations build developer portals that improve visibility and sharing across teams, promoting a consistent development experience. This is particularly beneficial in organizations where multiple teams work on similar applications using shared components.
- Target Audience: Large software organizations with many development teams, such as Spotify and Expedia.
- Key Features:
- Provides a customizable developer portal that enhances transparency across teams.
- Golden Paths: Shared templates that development teams can adapt to their needs.
- Extensible via plugins for specific capabilities (e.g., CI/CD, monitoring), which require setup by the platform team.
Backstage is particularly appealing for large software organizations where efficiency and visibility across development teams are essential.
Key Differences: Functionality and Focus
While both meshStack and Backstage operate in the realm of platform engineering, their functionality and approach vary significantly. Below is a detailed comparison of how each platform performs across various key categories:
| Category | meshStack | Backstage |
|---|---|---|
| Operating Model | SaaS | Self-Hosted |
| Automated Provisioning of Infrastructure | Built-In | None |
| Cloud Account Management | Built-In | None |
| Pre-Configured Platform Services | Built-In | Only via Scaffolding |
| # of Developers/Users to be feasible | > 20 up to unlimited | > 200 |
| Integration Effort | Low (built-in integrations, extendable) | High (write plug-ins, dedicated team necessary) |
| Required Skill Set to customize the platform | terraform/OpenTofu | React, Typescript |
Conclusion: Which Platform Suits Your Organization?
Both meshStack and Backstage offer valuable tools for platform engineering, but the right choice depends on your organization’s priorities. For enterprises seeking an integrated solution that combines cloud infrastructure management, compliance, scalability, and developer enablement, meshStack stands out as the comprehensive option. Its seamless integration reduces the complexity of platform engineering while scaling effortlessly with your organization, allowing platform teams to focus on delivering value rather than dealing with operational burdens.
On the other hand, if your primary goal is to enhance developer efficiency through improved collaboration and transparency, Backstage offers a flexible, open-source framework for building customized developer portals.
However, for organizations that require a holistic approach encompassing both infrastructure management and developer experience, meshStack provides the more integrated and all-encompassing solution.