OpsLevel vs. Cortex: What’s the best internal developer portal?

Cortex: A Manual Process

One of the primary pain points with Cortex is the manual effort required to maintain its catalog. While Cortex offers integrations, it relies heavily on webhook-based connections that often require developers to manually configure and update services. This process introduces operational overhead and increases the risk of out-of-date information across your catalog.

Organizations using Cortex report that keeping their service catalog current often demands significant hands-on involvement, slowing down operations and making it harder to trust the accuracy of their service data.

OpsLevel: Fully Automated Catalog Maintenance

OpsLevel, by contrast, automates the entire process of software discovery and catalog maintenance. With OpsLevel, software components are detected automatically from repositories, CI/CD pipelines, and other integrations, ensuring your catalog is always up to date without manual intervention. This reduces the operational burden on your engineering team and provides accurate, real-time visibility into your service ecosystem.

OpsLevel’s approach is especially beneficial for fast-moving organizations where components are frequently created, updated, or deprecated. By automating catalog updates, OpsLevel allows developers to focus on building and maintaining their services, rather than spending time on administrative tasks.

Cortex: Rigid, Undifferentiated Scorecards

Cortex offers scorecards as a way to enforce standards across services, but the lack of flexibility is a significant drawback. Every scorecard in Cortex applies the same baseline standards to all services, with no real ability to tailor these standards based on service maturity or criticality. 

This “one-size-fits-all” approach can quickly lead to frustration, as different teams and services often require standards that reflect their unique needs.

OpsLevel: Tailored Standards for Every Software Component

OpsLevel’s scorecards offer far more customization and flexibility. With OpsLevel, you can create scoped scorecards that apply different rules and checks based on software maturity, criticality, or the needs of specific teams. This granular control allows organizations to enforce the right standards for each service, whether it’s a production-critical application or an internal development tool.

OpsLevel also supports custom campaigns that go beyond scorecards, allowing you to drive specific initiatives—such as improving security posture or migrating services to newer technologies—across your entire organization or a targeted subset of components. These campaigns come with built-in notifications, reminders, and reporting, making it easier to ensure compliance and track progress.

Cortex: Long Implementation Timelines

Organizations looking to implement Cortex often face a long and complex setup process. Full deployments can take six months or longer, with significant engineering resources required to configure the catalog, set up integrations, and establish scorecards. This lengthy timeline can delay time to value, particularly for teams that need to improve visibility and enforce standards quickly.

OpsLevel: Up and Running in Weeks

OpsLevel, on the other hand, prides itself on being fast and easy to implement. Most OpsLevel customers are fully deployed within 30 to 45 days, thanks to the platform’s streamlined setup process and automated cataloging features. This means you can start realizing value from OpsLevel in a fraction of the time it would take to implement Cortex, giving your teams faster access to improved visibility and better standards enforcement.

‍

OpsLevel’s intuitive user interface and comprehensive onboarding support further reduce the time and effort needed to get started. For organizations that need quick wins, OpsLevel offers a far more efficient path to implementation and value.

Cortex: High Costs and Ongoing Maintenance

Cortex’s pricing can be a barrier for many organizations, especially as its costs are compounded by the manual effort required for ongoing maintenance. Keeping the catalog up to date, configuring webhook integrations, and managing scorecards all add to the total cost of ownership (TCO), making Cortex an expensive option for teams that need flexibility and efficiency.

‍

OpsLevel: Competitive Pricing Without Cutting Corners

OpsLevel provides better value for investment, thanks to its automated features and lower operational overhead. By reducing manual tasks like catalog maintenance and scorecard configuration, OpsLevel lowers TCO while still offering powerful features like customizable standards enforcement, deep reporting, and built-in notifications.

OpsLevel’s pricing is designed to be more accessible (nearly half the price of Cortex), particularly for mid-sized organizations and growing engineering teams that need to scale without being weighed down by excessive costs.

Cortex: Adoption Challenges

Cortex offers several developer-focused features, such as targeted alerts and service health metrics, but the platform’s complexity can hinder adoption. The manual processes required for catalog updates and the rigid scorecards can create friction for developers, leading to lower engagement.

Cortex forces you into rigid, binary choices that can increase developer toil, especially when it comes to managing configurations:

OpsLevel: Intuitive and Developer-Friendly

OpsLevel is designed with developer adoption in mind. By automating catalog updates and providing intuitive, customizable scorecards, OpsLevel reduces the friction that typically hampers developer engagement. The platform integrates seamlessly with tools developers already use, such as GitHub, GitLab, and CI/CD pipelines, making it easy for them to stay on top of their software standards and production readiness.

Additionally, OpsLevel’s self-service capabilities like Actions and Component Templates empower developers to take control of their own services, improving productivity and autonomy while reducing the burden on operations teams.