Port vs Backstage
Ten of fourteen models named Port first on the direct prompt; zero named Backstage. Both were named by all fourteen models and Port carries 71 labels and Backstage 72, so the shares are not directly comparable.
Named in two categories this edition.
Named in three categories this edition.
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category; every quote names the model and the prompt it came from. Both figures come from the internal developer portals page.
By framing
PortFirst choices, of fourteen modelsBackstage
Across every category in the November 2026 Edition, Port and Backstage were named in the same answer 190 times, of the 215 answers naming Port and the 218 naming Backstage. In those answers Backstage took the first choice thirty-one times and Port ninety-five.
Every model, every framing
| Model | Direct | Paraphrase | Comparative | Budget-constrained | Scale-constrained | Negative |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | | | | |||
| GPT-5.4 mini | | | | | | |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | | | | | | |
| Perplexity Sonar | | | | | | |
| Grok 4.20 | | | | | | |
| Mistral Small | | | | | | |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | | | | | | |
| Llama 4 Maverick | | | | | ||
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | | | | | | |
| Kimi K2 | | | | | | |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | | | | | | |
| MiniMax M2.5 | | | | | | |
| GPT-6 Luna | | | | | | |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | | | | | |
Port Backstage first choice named as an alternative argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, Port on the left and Backstage on the right.The direct prompt
Port first, Backstage an alternative
10 of 14 modelsBackstage was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Neither was the first choice, one was named
3 of 14 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.Neither was named
1 of 14 modelsThe answer made no first choice from these two in this category.Bold names in an answer are the products the judge labeled a first choice; a model naming several gives each of them that label. The full answer text for every row is in the record.
By buyer segment
Port69%#1 of 7Backstage11%#2 of 7What the models said about Port
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of eight in this category shown.
“Proprietary Closed‑Source Portals (e.g., Port.io, OpsLevel, Atlassian Compass) | *Vendor lock‑in.*” GLM 4.7 FlashX · negative prompt · soft negative
“you should carefully verify Port's compatibility with your infrastructure before committing fully” Mistral Small · negative prompt · soft negative
“proprietary portals (Port.io, OpsLevel, Atlassian Compass, etc.) carry vendor lock-in risks” Mistral Small · negative prompt · soft negative
“Port — Best Overall Value for Small-to-Mid Teams ... Port's free tier (up to 15 users) is the sweet spot between capability and cost.” Kimi K2 · budget prompt · first choice
“Port is recommended for mid-sized B2B companies as it provides a good balance of time-to-value, governance, and mid-market pricing.” Llama 4 Maverick · paraphrase prompt · first choice
“Choose Port for balanced, quick-start portals with modern features like AI—often recommended as the "best for most teams"” Grok 4.20 · comparative prompt · first choice
What the models said about Backstage
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of eight in this category shown.
“it is arguably the biggest trap for companies without a dedicated "Platform Team" of at least 3–5 senior engineers” Qwen 3.7 Flash · negative prompt · hard negative
“Avoid Backstage unless you have a dedicated platform engineering team and >1,000 developers” DeepSeek V4 Flash · budget prompt · hard negative
“Avoid Self-Hosting Backstage unless you have 2+ dedicated platform engineers” Gemini 3.5 Flash · direct prompt · hard negative
“The Best Overall Choice (Zero Monetary Cost): Backstage ... the de facto industry standard for open-source developer portals” Qwen 3.7 Flash · budget prompt · first choice
“Many teams start with Backstage for its flexibility but later discover they need more managed solutions” MiniMax M2.5 · comparative prompt · first choice
“the best choice is usually open-source Backstage — if you can afford some engineering time” GPT-5.4 mini · budget prompt · first choice
Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category, each against each. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.