As platform and DevOps teams seek to improve developer experience and enforce security best practices, they often turn to tools that automate and standardize software and infrastructure provisioning. Two such tools—Resourcely Blueprints and Backstage Scaffolder—offer templating solutions but cater to different use cases.
This post explores the key similarities and differences between Resourcely Blueprints and Backstage Scaffolder to help organizations choose the right tool for their needs.
What are Resourcely Blueprints and Backstage Scaffolder?
Resourcely Blueprints
Resourcely Blueprints are secure-by-default infrastructure templates that enable developers to provision cloud resources (AWS, Azure, GCP) without needing deep Terraform expertise. They ensure compliance by enforcing guardrails while giving developers a self-service experience through automatically generated forms.
Backstage Scaffolder
Backstage is an open-source developer portal created by Spotify that centralizes documentation, service catalogs, and infrastructure tooling. Its Scaffolder feature enables teams to automate the creation of software components, repositories, and other developer resources using predefined templates.
Both tools aim to streamline provisioning and enforce best practices, but they address different aspects of the development lifecycle.
Key Similarities
- Standardization & Reusability
- Both Resourcely and Backstage use templating to help teams create standardized components.
- Resourcely Blueprints apply this concept to infrastructure (e.g., AWS RDS, S3, IAM roles).
- Backstage Scaffolder applies it to code and service scaffolding (e.g., GitHub repos, microservices, CI/CD pipelines).
- Self-Service Developer Experience
- Both tools provide a UI-driven experience that allows developers to select from templates and provision resources without writing complex YAML or Terraform.
- Integration with Existing Tooling
- Resourcely Blueprints integrate with Terraform to support infrastructure as code (IaC).
- Backstage Scaffolder integrates with GitHub, GitLab, Kubernetes, and CI/CD pipelines for automating software delivery.
- Governance & Guardrails
- Resourcely enforces security policies directly in Blueprints, ensuring infrastructure is deployed secure by default.
- Backstage Scaffolder enables platform teams to set template rules and approval workflows to ensure consistency in software scaffolding.
Key Differences
When to use Resourcely Blueprints vs Backstage Scaffolder
Use Resourcely Blueprints if:
✅ You need to standardize and secure cloud infrastructure provisioning for developers.
✅ Your team wants to use Terraform without requiring deep expertise from developers.
✅ You prioritize security guardrails and compliance enforcement.
✅ You need a UI-driven self-service experience for infrastructure.
Use Backstage Scaffolder if:
✅ You need to automate the creation of software components (services, repos, pipelines).
✅ Your team wants consistency in software development but not infrastructure provisioning.
✅ You are already using Backstage as a developer portal.
✅ You want an open-source solution with community support.
Can Resourcely and Backstage Work Together?
Yes! These tools can complement each other rather than compete. For example:
- Use Resourcely Blueprints to provision cloud resources (databases, storage, IAM roles).
- Use Backstage Scaffolder to generate repositories and set up CI/CD pipelines.
By integrating both, organizations can provide a seamless, secure, and automated experience for both software and infrastructure provisioning.
Final Thoughts
Resourcely Blueprints and Backstage Scaffolder both simplify and standardize developer workflows, but they serve different purposes:
- Resourcely focuses on cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure, GCP).
- Backstage Scaffolder focuses on software scaffolding (repos, services, pipelines).
If you need secure, compliant cloud resource provisioning, Resourcely is the better choice.
If you need to automate software project creation, Backstage Scaffolder is the way to go.
By understanding their strengths and limitations, organizations can choose the right tool—or use both—to optimize their developer experience.
Additional Resources
Resourcely's Blueprint Library offers a collection of pre-configured templates designed to streamline the deployment of cloud infrastructure across major providers like AWS, Azure, and GCP. Each blueprint incorporates best practices to ensure secure and efficient resource provisioning. Key features include:
- AWS Blueprints: Templates for services such as VPCs, S3 Buckets, IAM Roles, Lambda Functions, and RDS Instances, emphasizing security and optimal configurations.
- Azure Blueprints: Templates for resources like Resource Groups, Virtual Machines, SQL Databases, and Storage Accounts, focusing on compliance and performance.
- GCP Blueprints: Templates for Compute Networks and Subnetworks, promoting best practices in network configuration and management.
These blueprints are organized into intuitive groups, assisting users—including those who may not be cloud infrastructure experts—in configuring essential and advanced settings easily. They also encourage the use of tags for better resource identification and management.
