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Backstage vs. Visual Studio App Center (discontinued)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Backstage
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
Backstage is an open source framework for building developer portals. Powered by a centralized software catalog, Backstage restores order to microservices and infrastructure and enables product teams to ship code quickly without compromising autonomy.
$0
Visual Studio App Center (discontinued)
Score 6.8 out of 10
N/A
Visual Studio App Center was a solution used to build, test, release, and monitor mobile and desktop apps, as well as to continuously monitor real-time performance. The product was discontinued in March 2025, and is no longer available.
$40
per month per build concurrency
Pricing
BackstageVisual Studio App Center (discontinued)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Builds
$40
per month per build concurrency
Standard Test Plan
$99
per month per build concurrency
Enterprise Test Plan
$499
per month per build concurrency
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BackstageVisual Studio App Center (discontinued)
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Best Alternatives
BackstageVisual Studio App Center (discontinued)
Small Businesses
GitHub
GitHub
Score 9.1 out of 10
GitHub
GitHub
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
GitHub
GitHub
Score 9.1 out of 10
GitHub
GitHub
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
Perforce P4
Perforce P4
Score 7.2 out of 10
Perforce P4
Perforce P4
Score 7.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BackstageVisual Studio App Center (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
BackstageVisual Studio App Center (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
Open Source
Backstage is well suited in building developer portal or developer platform. It can be easily customized as well, so different companies can use it based on their own situation. It currently focus more on frontend, but I can see there is already a roadmap for improving backend with some core modules. After that has been introduced, it will become really powerful and save developers time to solve common problems.
Verified User
Anonymous
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Discontinued Products
Honestly, it's an all around solution that needs some enhancements. Need to build an app, check! Need to test that app, check! Need to debug that app, check! Visual Studio App Center is a well rounded platform for multiple types of builds and services.
Verified User
Anonymous
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Pros
Open Source
  • developer portal
  • easy to onboard
  • easy to extend
Verified User
Anonymous
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Discontinued Products
  • It supplies the right native integration for test cases both IOS and Android
  • Constant device updates means you are working with the right builds to support product use cases
  • Excels in automated test cases that are easy to implement, monitor, and digest results
Verified User
Anonymous
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Cons
Open Source
  • it may provide more modules that can solve common problems
Verified User
Anonymous
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Discontinued Products
  • Webview support was lacking
  • User management seems a bit disconnected from the standard Microsoft ecosystem. Almost feels like you are managing local users and sharing access more than an enterprise solution
  • Price could be better
  • Buggy on some of the latest versions of windows
Verified User
Anonymous
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Alternatives Considered
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Discontinued Products
The biggest benefit is in integrations and plug-ins, as well as the fact that it's not open source. I know open source is popular, but we have all been on the downside of open source and waiting for things to be voted up or a contribution to fix an issue. This alone makes VSAC a nice solution! Plus, it comes with a complete IDE integration of services, documentation, and is light weight
Verified User
Anonymous
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Return on Investment
Open Source
  • It speeds up our progress on building our own developer portal
  • It's free to use so very little investment
Verified User
Anonymous
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Discontinued Products
  • Cut down on time to delivery enhancements and overall builds to users
  • Helps test new proposed releases with ease
  • Cuts down on local build issues as it does do a good job with local development environments as well
Verified User
Anonymous
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ScreenShots