Spotify announced in early September 2025 the launch of Backstage Plus, its own commercial offering built on the Backstage project it donated to the CNCF in 2020[1]. The decision has sparked an intense conversation in the internal platform community. The argument is not about the offering itself, which is legitimate, but about what it implies for the open project’s governance and the precedent it sets.

Key takeaways

  • Backstage Plus is not a technical fork in the classic sense: the open project remains in the CNCF, but Spotify has moved relevant plugins to the commercial side and prioritizes monetizable improvements.

  • The community’s discomfort has three legitimate roots: moving plugins from the open to the commercial side, development pace imbalance, and the negative precedent for other projects donated to foundations.

  • The "donor company → growth → monetization" pattern is familiar: Hashicorp/Terraform, Elastic/Elasticsearch, MongoDB/SSPL are earlier variants. Backstage is, for now, in a softer phase.

  • Alternatives that have gained interest since the Plus announcement: Port (commercial with no open equivalent), Cortex (lighter, service quality metrics focus), and a possible community fork still without a concrete announcement.

  • For teams running Backstage in production with significant investment, the announcement does not force immediate action, but it does call for a dependency inventory and active participation in the open community.

What Backstage Plus is and is not

Backstage Plus is not, technically, a fork in the classical sense. Backstage remains an open project under the CNCF, its repositories remain public, and it continues accepting external contributions. What Spotify has done is create a commercial layer with plugins, managed services, premium support. It also includes some proprietary integrations with Spotify tools like soundcheck, their internal template validation platform, and with specific connectors not published in the open project.

In practice, this creates two versions of the product with growing divergence. Open Backstage remains perfectly functional, but the most ambitious plugins, the polished onboarding experience, and integrations with productivity tools start to live on the commercial side.

The important nuance is that this is not illegal nor does it break CNCF rules. A donating maintainer can build commercial services on top of its own open project. Red Hat does it with OpenShift on Kubernetes, and Hashicorp did it with Terraform Cloud on Terraform before the license change. The difference is in how it is communicated and how effort is distributed between open and commercial versions.

Why it bothers the community

The community’s discomfort has three legitimate roots:

First: Spotify has moved some plugins that were in the open repository to the commercial side. For users who already depended on those plugins it means the open version is, in practice, more incomplete than before. The implicit message is that the open project is a base platform and the useful experience requires a license.

Second: the imbalance in development pace. Spotify remains the dominant maintainer of Backstage in terms of code contributions. With Backstage Plus, their natural incentive is to prioritize improvements they can monetize over improvements that benefit the wider community. It is not an explicit process, but over time the effect is measurable.

Third: a matter of precedent. Backstage was donated to the CNCF as a sign of commitment to the open model. If the donating project starts creating commercial offerings that consume capabilities that were once open, the message to other maintainers considering donating projects is bad.

Spotify icon, whose developer portal Backstage was donated to the CNCF in 2020 and whose governance model is now under tension with the launch of Backstage Plus as a commercial layer over the open projectSpotify icon. Its developer portal Backstage was donated to the CNCF in 2020, and its governance model is now under tension with the launch of Backstage Plus as a commercial layer over the open project

Alternatives that were growing

The conversation about alternatives to Backstage has been heating up for a while, and the Plus announcement has accelerated those conversations. Three options deserve mention:

Port: a commercial internal portal platform that never aimed to be open source and has been gaining market share in companies that prefer a managed solution from the start. Its difference from Backstage Plus is that it has no open equivalent, so there is no ambiguity of expectations.

Cortex: positioning itself as a lighter alternative focused on service quality metrics, with a different approach from Backstage. Cortex has grown in mid-sized companies where the cost of maintaining a custom Backstage was high. Since the Plus announcement, Cortex has seen a noticeable uptick in interest.

A possible real community-sustained Backstage fork. Some external plugin maintainers have publicly discussed in CNCF forums and Slack the viability of a sister project that preserves the open Backstage soul without depending on Spotify’s editorial direction. In September 2025 there is no concrete announcement, but conversations exist and are serious.

What teams running Backstage in production can do

If you manage an existing Backstage with significant investment, the Plus announcement does not force you into immediate action. Your instance still works, the plugins you use are still available, and the open version still receives updates. But it is a good time to do four things:

  • Inventory which plugins you use and verify which are on the open side and which have moved to the commercial side. This information gives you visibility on your future dependency.

  • Review the weight of your own Backstage investment. If you have been integrating Backstage with your ecosystem for two years and have your own internal plugins, the cost of migrating to another platform is high and prudence advises against rushing. If you are starting a pilot, this may be a good time to reconsider alternatives.

  • Participate in the open community with weight. Moments of tension in governance are when external voices in the conversation matter most. Attending public meetings, contributing to open plugins, and defending technical decisions that preserve the open version are concrete ways to influence.

  • Calmly evaluate whether Spotify’s commercial offering fits your needs. It is not a sin to pay for a commercial product if it offers enough value and the pricing model is sustainable. What you should not do is make that decision out of fear rather than careful analysis.

The donor company pattern

This episode fits a broader pattern we have seen repeat in enterprise open source:

  • Initial phase: enthusiastic donation to a foundation with lots of positive press.

  • Middle phase: growth in adoption and community with the donor company leading but accepted thanks to its contribution.

  • Late phase: the donor company needs revenue and starts moving parts of the project into commercial offerings.

We have seen variants of this with Hashicorp and Terraform[2], which in 2023 ended up changing the open project’s license to the Business Source License. The same happened with Elastic and Elasticsearch[3], which in 2021 moved to dual SSPL/Elastic License. The first case was MongoDB[4], which launched the SSPL itself back in 2018.

Backstage is, for now, in a milder phase: it has not changed the open project’s license and has not stopped accepting contributions. But the direction of movement is the same and the question is how far it will go.

How to think about the decision

My personal read, after keeping Backstage running in several client environments for over two years, is mixed. The project remains technically valid and there is no obviously superior open alternative. But the peace of mind from knowing the project was genuinely open has eroded.

If I had to start today with an internal portal, I would evaluate open Backstage, Port, Cortex, and the possibility of building something custom with Hugo or Astro on top of a YAML catalog. The choice would depend on organization size and how much complex integration I need. For small companies, a well-maintained static catalog covers 80% of the value. For large companies, Backstage still makes sense but with calibrated expectations.

What I would not do is pay for Backstage Plus without having exhausted the open version first. Many companies discover that open plugins and community documentation cover their needs. Paying makes sense when the incremental value is clear and sustained, not when it is a defensive reflex against uncertainty.

This article is also available in Spanish: El fork de Backstage de Spotify: qué cambia para los usuarios.

Sources:

  1. Spotify Engineering — Cloud Native Computing Foundation Accepts Backstage as a Sandbox Project[1]
  2. HashiCorp — HashiCorp Adopts Business Source License[2]
  3. Elastic — Doubling Down on Open, Part Deux: Elastic License Change[3]
  4. MongoDB — Server Side Public License[4]

Frequently asked questions

Does my open Backstage instance keep working after the Backstage Plus launch?

Yes. Backstage remains an open project under the CNCF, its repositories remain public, it keeps accepting external contributions and the open version still receives updates; Spotify has not changed the license. What it has done is create a commercial layer with plugins, managed services, premium support and proprietary integrations such as soundcheck, and move some plugins from the open repository to the commercial side. The announcement forces no immediate action, but it is worth inventorying which plugins you use and which have moved.

Should I pay for Backstage Plus to secure the future of my internal portal?

Not without having exhausted the open version first. Many companies discover that open plugins and community documentation cover their needs; paying makes sense when the incremental value is clear and sustained, not as a defensive reflex against uncertainty. If you have spent two years integrating Backstage and have your own internal plugins, the cost of migrating is high and prudence advises against rushing. If you are starting a pilot, this is a good time to reconsider alternatives.

What alternatives to Backstage exist if I do not want to depend on Spotify's direction?

Three options have gained interest since the announcement: Port is a commercial internal portal platform with no open equivalent, so there is no ambiguity of expectations. Cortex is lighter and focused on service quality metrics, and it has grown in mid-sized companies where maintaining a custom Backstage was expensive. The third is a possible community fork that external plugin maintainers are discussing in CNCF forums and Slack, though as of September 2025 there was no concrete announcement. For small companies, a static YAML catalog built with Hugo or Astro covers 80% of the value.

Sources

  1. donated to the CNCF in 2020
  2. Hashicorp and Terraform
  3. Elastic and Elasticsearch
  4. MongoDB