Backstage Is Not Free: The Real TCO of Building vs Buying an Internal Developer Platform

Backstage Is Not Free: The Real TCO of Building vs Buying an Internal Developer Platform Backstage has a $0 license fee. It also requires 2-3 senior platform engineers to maintain it full-time. At a loaded salary of $150,000 per engineer, that is $300,000 to $450,000 per year before you write a single line of custom plugin code. This is the IDP cost blindspot. Engineering leaders compare "free open source" against a vendor quote and conclude the build is cheaper. They are comparing a license fee